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fangswbenefits · 1 year ago

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The Arrangement (5) - Confrontation

Summary: Living under the same roof as Astarion was proving to me more of a challenge than you had anticipated.

Pairing: Astarion x female!Tav

Warnings: Nightmare. Hurt/Comfort. Innuendo. Heavy use of sarcasm hahaha.

Word count: 4.4k

Previous chapter. Ao3. Series Masterlist

If anyone had suggested a few days ago that you'd find yourself living under the same roof as Astarion, you would have called them delusional and point them to the nearest infirmary for a mental check.

But the wheels of fate turned in mysterious ways, and a mere glance at the man sitting across from you was proof enough of that.

The flames swirling and crisping in the nearby fireplace cast the most delicate yellow and orange tint on his pale complexion as he flipped the pages of a book you had lent him.

You had tried to focus on your own reading, but you just couldn't help but to occasionally shift your gaze to him.

Gods… it was nigh criminal how handsome this man was.

It was as if he had been hand-carved by someone intended on wreaking havoc in the name of beauty.

And, as far as you were concerned, they had thoroughly succeeded.

Suddenly, he lifted his head and he met your gaze dead-on, unblinkingly.

So handsome…

A cold shiver ran up the back of your neck, but you found herself unable to look away. It was as if, in that moment, you had managed to block out everything around you but him. The longer you stared at him, the more acutely you felt detached from reality.

“May I kiss you?”

You blinked a few times. “What?”

His eyes narrowed, one eyebrow raised in sheer perplexity.

“No need to look so offended, darling,” he said with a scoff, rising from his seat and snatching the candle holder from the table to your right. “I was merely asking for this. I apologise if the request is out of the realm of your ‘one hundred good deeds I must perform before I perish’ list.”

You blinked again.

What?

You glanced around, but judging from the lack of reaction from both Gale and Shadowheart, you figured that maybe he hadn't actually asked to kiss you.

Great. Now I'm hallucinating…

He returned to his padded chair with a dramatic sigh. “Honestly, I've seen more light in the deepest corners of the Shadowlands.”

Maybe sleep deprivation was finally taking its toll on you, rendering you delirious.

Regardless, the illusion had been enough to flare your heart, and you hurriedly focused your attention on the book in your hands.

“I had quite forgotten how peacefully silent it can be without having you around, Astarion.” Shadowheart spoke as she tended to a few rolls of parchment and letters.

“Well, you can thank Wyll for that.”

She ignored him. “All you do is complain.”

You felt a storm brewing on the horizon as you lifted your eyes to glance at him.

Astarion let out a cynical laugh. “You're one to speak.”

Shadowheart was now scowling. Deeply.

“Besides, that is a rather disingenuous accusation. Want proof?” he asked, clearing his throat. “So, Gale - what are you reading that has you scribbling about like a mad man?”

The wizard snapped out of his nose-deep dive and brought his quill to a halt with a beaming smile. “Glad you ask, my friend. ‘A Visual Guide to Baldur's Gate's Exquisite Cuisine’. First edition. Hand-signed by the finest chefs in the city. What a marvel, indeed.”

As expected, Astarion looked as unimpressed as ever, but you interjected before he could mouth anything obtuse.

“That sounds rather exciting, Gale.”

He nodded eagerly. “A small guilty pleasure of mine, I must say. I'm taking down some notes, so that I can - hopefully - prepare some delectable dishes for us.”

Shadowheart's eyes remained fixed on Astarion as if awaiting for him to burst at any moment.

He exchanged a quick glance with you before muttering, “Unbelievable.”

“I think it's to be commended that he cares enough to try,” you said sweetly, earning a scornful glare from him. “I can't wait for you to showcase your abilities, Gale.”

“My sentiments exactly, dear friend.”

Astarion chuckled darkly. “‘Abilities’ as in setting the kitchen ablaze, or…”

You shot him a death glare.

He shrugged. “You two are a match made in the hells.”

This had you snap your book closed with a loud thud, eyeing him defiantly. “So what constitutes an engaging reading to you, Astarion? Murderous ploys?”

His lips curled into a devious smile. “Something along those lines. Although I do enjoy indulging in some debauchery from time to time.”

You weren't sure Gale would set the kitchen ablaze with his cooking skills, but Astarion's blunt and crass words sure did that to your cheeks.

Shadowheart scoffed.

“There are some interesting books in my collection,” he continued, clearly enjoying your loss of composure. “I will gladly lend you some… or maybe offer a guided tour through my favourite pieces?”

You needed to change the subject.

Fast.

You were most definitely fighting a losing battle.

This was Astarion's playground, and he would always come out victorious.

“Must you always resort to such vulgarity?” Shadowheart sneered, shaking her head in disapproval.

“I'm afraid the city is fresh out of those who know how to properly enjoy themselves, and we can't all be dullards, darling.”

You cleared your throat. “So, Gale… you're leaving for Waterdeep soon enough.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Yes. If all goes well, we shall have access to the Wish spell soon enough, my vampling friend.”

Astarion crossed his arms. “Finally some progress.”

“Maybe you should be more thankful.” You said with a frown.

“As should you,” he shot back. “No more need to offer your blood to me.”

Fair enough.

“Much to your disappointment, I imagine.” Shadowheart chimed in.

But before he could retort, you heard a rising commotion outside that only came to a halt as the front door burst open.

Lae'zel came through, carrying what appeared to be a very much deceased wild boar across her shoulders as if it was nothing more than a sack of feathers.

She kicked the door shut at once, nostrils flaring. “Tsk'va! What are those two doing outside?”

“House arrest.” Astarion informed.

Bringing the carcass to the kitchen table, Lae'zel locked eyes with you, visibly annoyed.

“I had plans to rescue you from that prison. And I would have had it my way had it not been for Gale and his… morals.”

Gale bolted from his seat, suddenly looking rather distressed. “Lae'zel, we've spoken about this before and agreed not to bring bleeding carcasses into our home.”

She glared at him. “You alone agreed to it - I had no part in it.”

He gave her an exasperated look, picking up a piece of cloth to wipe away the strands of blood that had begun to run along the wooden surface.

“If this falls on the carpet, it will be a nightmare to remove the stains.”

Astarion tutted. “Darling, that carpet is so hideous that being splattered with carrion blood would be a vast improvement.”

You rose to your feet, rushing to join Lae's zel, who quickly placed her hand on your shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze.

Your lips tugged into a genuine smile.

To her, this was the equivalent of ‘I am glad you're safe and I care for you’ and it warmed your heart beyond measure.

Naturally, Astarion quickly joined your side, earning Lae'zel's disdainful gaze.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, it was a two-for-one type of deal, wasn't it?” Astarion mocked, turning to you. “Free one criminal and get two on house arrest.”

Unfortunately for Astarion, Lae'zel had little patience to entertain his sarcastic remarks and merely scoffed.

“I would have easily rescued from that prison, you know?” She gave your shoulder another squeeze and you nodded. “Those frail guards are no match for a githyanki.”

“On that much we can agree.” He mused.

She gave him a stern look. “I would have left you there.”

“We fought a giant brain, a scheming squid, and a whole parade of lunatics side by side, in case you've forgotten, my dear nest of vipers friend,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Maybe you ought to show more gratitude.”

You expected her to snap at him, but she merely pressed her lips and gave him a nod.

That would be as far as she'd go, though.

“Well, as much as I enjoy this ‘family’ reunion, I'm off to my room,” Shadowheart said from a distance, already heading towards the staircase. “Please do not maim each other in my absence - there's only so much healing I can provide.”

You chuckled and she smiled warmly at you.

“Say, Lae'zel…” Astarion started, circling the boar with utmost interest. “I would hate for perfectly adequate blood to go to waste.”

The implication in his words wasn't subtle at all, and she groaned. “I thought you feeding on our friend was enough.”

Your stomach lurched violently.

He scoffed. “There is no such thing as ‘enough’ blood for a vampire. Besides, she's the main course… this would be more of an aperitif, if you will.”

Now, you felt positively sick to your core.

A wave of nausea and repulsion gripped you tight.

“It would be a mutually beneficial situation - I save Gale from a mental breakdown, sparing you tue ordeal, and I also get to quench my hunger.”

Gale grumbled something in agreement.

But you felt the sudden wish to be swallowed whole by some magical hole in the ground.

The way he referred to you as nothing more than food prompted a visceral reaction from you, and you feared you might empty the contents of your stomach from it alone.

“Um… I'll go get some sleep… I'm too tired,” you said dismissively, already pacing towards the corridor that led to your room. “Have a good night.”

Astarion called after you, but you didn't bother looking back.

But before you could turn the doorknob, you heard light steps approaching and firm fingers gripping your forearm.

Astarion.

His face was void of any amusement. “You're upset.”

You pulled free from his grasp. “A neat observation. No wonder you're such a skilled rogue.”

His brows furrowed lightly. “What's the matter?”

“It seems that I'm only worthy of your attention when it comes to you treating me as nothing but a meal, to hurl your sarcastic remarks at. Oh - and unless I'm on the verge of death,” you said, counting on each finger.

He seemed quite taken aback, his features twisting into a scowl. “You really adore selling yourself short, don't you?”

“You won't even deny it.”

“Then what sort of attention do you want from me?” He asked, taking a step closer, the sudden proximity catching you off-guard. “Do enlighten me.”

You glared at him in silence for a moment, vaguely wondering how the two of you had gotten to this point in your relationship, where everything seemed so… off.

Astarion was standing in front of you, but it wasn't truly him.

He was there, but not really.

He seemed so detached from the Astarion you had fallen for, and a part of you loathed that you had allowed yourself to get so attached to him in the first place.

Eventually, you heaved a deep sigh as he awaited your reply. “The sort of attention I don't have to beg for.”

His face softened briefly and he parted his lips only to press them close together again as if he had decided against speaking.

Right.

You swallowed hard. “Have a good night.”

The hopeful part of you half-expected him to stop you from walking away as you closed the door behind you, but he did no such thing.

You pressed your back against it, taking a deep breath, feeling as if you had just lost something.

Had you been too dramatic?

Did it even matter at this point?

Maybe it was better off this way.

You moved to scrub your face clean in the washbasin, preparing yourself to get some rest before the morning came.

Whatever was of your relationship with Astarion would have to wait for you to be able to think more clearer.

Slipping into your nightdress, you allowed yourself to fall on your bed and onto your stomach with a muffled thud, wanting to do nothing more than to scream into the covers, but remained still instead.

After what felt like hours of restlessly rolling beneath the sheets, you felt your mind lighten and were able to find solace in the peace and quiet.

That was until you heard a distant voice.

A woman's voice.

Her voice.

“Go on. Bleed her dry for me…”

You felt the mattress dip slightly and your eyes snapped open only to find Astarion baring his fangs.

And then he was on you, pinning you frozen with both hands.

“No - stop! Get off!”

He didn't hold back and you felt a familiar sting tear through your neck, his cold lips sprawling across your skin.

“She's so pathetic. Just kill her. Put her out of her misery.”

“Get off!” You cried out, feeling his weight pinning you down.

He didn't waver and you felt your blood being drained from you alarmingly fast as you tried your best to yank free from his vicious grip.

You were going to die.

He was going to kill you.

“Stop! Please - Astarion!”

Something was squeezing your shoulder and you tried to squirm away from the increasing pressure.

You felt him chuckle in amusement against your skin and that was what killed you first.

“ASTARION!”

The grip on you kept on increasing and you realised someone was shaking you.

“Wake up.”

How was he speaking whilst fiercely feeding on you?

Were you already dead?

Your cries turned into uncontrollable sobs and you felt like breathing was no longer an option.

“Wake up!”

The shove against your shoulder was too fierce this time, and you jolted violently, feeling the pressure on top of you only faintly ease.

“Get the fuck off me!”

You tried to conjure a spell - any spell - that might help you set yourself free.

He called out your name and your eyes snapped open at once, only to see Astarion hovering over you, hand now pressed firmly against your lips, muffling your sobs.

Bergamot.

Rosemary.

Aged brandy.

It was him.

He was there.

The nightmare faded with each passing second, and, for the longest time, all you could hear were your laboured breaths as you struggled to step into reality.

Your eyes were blurred from the tears welling up, and you watched his lips part to utter something, but the pounding in your ears prevented you from understanding a single word.

He eventually dropped the hand from your mouth, staring at you with an understanding look on his face.

“You're safe."

For a split second, you wondered if this was truly your Astarion, and once you asserted that it was truly him sitting beside you, you pushed yourself from the mattress, looping your arms around his neck.

He took you in his arms, gently pressing his lips to your temple.

“You're safe. I'm here and I've got you."

You couldn't stop the tears from streaming down as you pressed your face to his shoulder, seeking any sliver of comfort he could spare you.

The door to your room burst open.

“What happened? What did you do?”

Shadowheart's accusatory tone ground on your already fragile nerves.

“She was having a nightmare.”

His cool hand came to the back of your head, further pressing you into him.

“Oh. Another one…”

You felt your heartbeat soothe and your breathing gradually even out.

But his embrace felt too much like coming home for you to part from him, so you didn't, allowing him to rock you gently in his arms.

“It's become more frequent as of late.” She said with a hint of sadness to her voice.

Astarion kept his lips pressed to your temple, grounding you.

You eventually pulled back from him with a loud sniffle. “I'm fine. I am sorry I worried you…”

Shadowheart approached you, kindness on her face. “Nonsense. I am here for you - we are here for you,” she added, glancing at Astarion. “Always.”

“I'll just try to get some rest… you two may go…” you stammered in between a few sobs.

Shadowheart didn't move and neither did Astarion.

You rubbed your puffy and wet eyes. “I mean it. It will be fine.”

“Very well,” Shadowheart drawled out reluctantly. “But please let me know if there is anything I can help with.”

You gave her a reassuring nod paired with a comforting smile.

She returned the gesture and excused herself, clicking the door shut behind her.

Your gaze shifted to him. “You can leave, too.”?

He scoffed. “No.”

“What?”

“You'll have to stake me.”

You were utterly confused by his perseverance.

“I am fine, Astarion. I am thankful for your help, but… you don't have to stay.”

He nodded. “I don't have to, but I want to.”

Your heart clenched tightly in your chest.

And then your eyes fell to his shoulder.

“Oh, my…” you winced at the sight of the soppy fabric of his shirt. “I'm sorry for that…”

He looked confused at first, but followed your line of sight and smiled. “Was this an excuse to get me out of my shirt?”

His playful jab immediately had you chuckle, rolling your eyes at him.

“Not to mention that I've been covered in all sorts of your bodily fluids,” he went on, earning a surprised glare from you. “This might be my…” he paused brielfy, as if evaluating his options. “Ah - my third favourite, yes.”

You should have known better than to take the evident glare, but you could really use the distraction.

“What are the first two, then?”

You hadn't even realised your nightdress had come undone at the front until he reached out to pull back the sleeve that had slid down your arm.

Glancing down, you couldn't help the rush of heat on your cheeks as your breasts were barely covered at all.

“Blood, naturally,” he said in a low voice, tying each set of strings with unmatched dexterity, keeping your modesty preserved. “And your-”

But before he could reply, you quickly pressed your forefinger to his lips, eyes widening as you felt him smile under your touch and pressing a soft kiss.

You felt as though you might implode.

His hands moved up your chest, tying up the last knots.

“There - all neatly wrapped up like a nice little gift.” He said, amusement coating his words.

He was too good at getting under your skin.

More than you were willing to admit, especially out loud.

“Thank you for making me laugh.” You said truthfully, pushing aside how he had so easily made you feel all heated up.

“I aim to please.”

His words hit you like a thousand knives.

“You're more than that…” You said, wanting to reassure him that he didn't need to resort to honeyed words and calculated moves to create a meaningful connection with someone.

But your statement had the opposite effect, and he frowned slightly.

“Don't. Do not start…”

You swallowed and nodded in understanding. “I didn't mean to offend.”

He shook his head, adjusting the fabric of your nightdress over your shoulders. “You didn't. I merely do not wish to make this about me.”

You were slightly taken aback.

“I know all too well the burden of nightmares,” he explained. “Even if elves don't indulge in conventional sleep, we are still prone to nightmares when we trance.”

Oh.

“And I would hate for you to be plagued like that.”

You lowered your gaze, feeling extremely exposed all of a sudden.

“So tell me, darling, when did these start?” He asked, shifting closer to you. “And why were you screaming my name?”

You felt a lump swell in your throat.

He placed his finger under your chin, and pressed upwards until your eyes met his.

“What haunts you?”

You.

“Can we just… not…” You asked, already feeling tears prickling in the corners of your eyes.

Reason told you that a heartfelt conversation with Astarion was long overdue, but you didn't feel ready.

You still felt too startled and too vulnerable.

He had hurt you in more ways than one, even if unconsciously done at times.

“We don't have to talk about it.”

You nodded, a few tears rolling down. “Thank you.”

“We can push all of that aside, even if just for tonight.”

Your heart hammered fast inside you.

He then cradled your face in his hands, leaning in to press his lips to each cheek, kissing your tears away.

Your eyes fluttered shut as he trailed down, inching closer to your lips.

A shudder coursed throughout your entire body, barely able to contain the anticipation.

Please kiss me…

His thumbs rubbed slow circles on your flushed cheeks and your lips parted as his ghosted yours.

Astarion…

Almost there.

You could almost taste him.

Your hands came to grip his wrists tightly, silently urging him to take you.

Please… please…

As your heart thudded faster and faster, you gasped when he quickly kissed the tip of your nose before pressing his lips to your forehead.

You couldn't deny the overwhelming wave of disappointment that washed over you, even if, deep down, you realised it was probably the best course of action, considering how vulnerable you still felt from the nightmare.

A few more tears spilled over, which he quickly brushed away before pulling back.

“I can stay until you fall asleep.”

Your heart dropped.

Everything was conditional with him.

It was always meant to come to an end, eventually.

He would stay with you… but only until you drifted off to another nightmare, perhaps.

It was as if he couldn't simply stay with you.

You shook your head with a sniffle, letting go of him. “No. You can go… but thank you for this.”

“I can stay.”

“... until I fall asleep.” You finished his sentence.

He nodded, eyes locking with yours. “Or for as long as you need me.”

You felt ridiculous from the way your heart immediately skipped a beat.

“Will you hug me?”

He shifted back against the headboard and sprawled his arms out to you with a sly grin. “Come here, darling.”

For a brief moment, you saw your Astarion again.

Open and caring.

You scooted over to rest your body against his, smiling softly as he placed his arm around you, trailing absent-minded caresses along your arm.

His coldness felt comfortable even in the dead of night, and you wrapped your arm around his torso, enjoying the silence.

“Am I too cold?”

You're perfect.

You shook your head vehemently.

But he still reached out to grab the blanket at your feet, draping over your frame.

“You are shivering, you fool.” He whispered and you could hear the smile in his remark.

You snuggled up against him, wishing you could freeze this moment in time.

Slowly but surely, and lulled by his caresses, you felt exhaustion take over, your eyelids feeling progressively heavier.

Maybe this was all a dream.

Maybe you'd wake up only to find that this had never happened.

That you hadn't felt your Astarion once again.

His chin was resting atop your head and your heart skipped yet another beat.

“Astarion?”

“Hmm?”

“What happened to us…”

The hand on your arm stilled for a moment and he hushed you. “Just rest.”

Your eyelids did feel heavy, and you could recognise your own brain fighting away your sleep, but you still wanted to know.

You needed to know what had gone so terribly wrong.

Especially when the man holding you in his arms had just provided immeasurable comfort.

“I miss you… us…” You heard yourself mumble under your breath.

He did utter something unintelligible, but you were far too exhausted to ask for a repeat.

Your warm body slumped against his cold one as he lulled you into sleep with the rhythmic caresses on your back.

It seemed that this time, your nightmare had started and ended with him.

Morning came and he was gone.

Of course he was.

Even with your windows barred from the sun, he had still chosen to leave.

He had tucked you under the bedsheets and warm blankets.

You had nearly forgotten what a good night of sleep was ever since the nightmares had taken root in your mind.

His scent lingered all around you and it was impossible to escape it.

You eventually pushed yourself up to sit in silence, going over the events of a couple of hours ago.

Why did he always leave in the end?

Why couldn't you just bring yourself to move on from him?

You could have taken the time to open up to him about how you felt, but you were so afraid to push him away.

He had his own vulnerabilities and he didn't need yours weighing him down, too.

You lazily scrambled out of bed, slipping into your robe, ready for a new day.

As you made your way down the corridor, you began to hear heated voices coming from the kitchen.

“Must we all live in darkness because of you?”

You found Astarion sitting by the table, seemingly unbothered by Lae'zel's snarky remarks, the room plunged in darkness, keeping the scorching sun at bay.

“Oh please, feel free to address your complaints to the Grand Duke.”

Gale saw you first and offered a warm smile. “How are you feeling, my friend?”

You hugged yourself, forcing a smile. “I am well, thank you.”

Astarion turned his head to you, annoyance giving way to a sliver of concern. “Did you manage to get some rest?”

You nodded, your heart immediately reacting to his presence.

“Shall I brew some chamomile tea?” Gale offered eagerly, moving about the kitchen to gather the supplies.

“Thank you,” you said, glancing around. “Where is Shadowheart?”

“She headed out to the apothecary,” Gale said, placing the kettle by the fireplace. “She's keen on helping you out with these nightmares.”

Guilt hit you.

Of course she had.

Shadowheart had held your hand through so many perils, yet you couldn't help but to feel guilty that she was searching for help when the solution to your problem was right in front of you.

And he kept glaring at you, as if studying your every move.

A soft knock on the front door snapped you from your thoughts, and you went to push it open, revealing the visitor.

No.

No fucking way.

You immediately slammed the door shut, feeling rage swirl inside you.

“Who is it?” Gale asked.

“No one.”

Then your gaze met Astarion's whose eyebrow was arched in confusion.

“That is no way to treat a guest.” The woman outside chirped happily.

Ava.

Next chapter: Broken - November 26

Series Masterlist . I don't keep taglists, so feel to follow this story on Ao3 🩷

#astarion smut #astarion angst #astarion x female reader #astarion x tav #astarion x f!tav #astarion x female tav #astarion scenario #astarion x you #astarion x reader

1K notes · View notes

vaaaaaiolet · 11 days ago

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Sleep-deprived Leon's upstairs neighbor works late 'cause she's a singer on a deadline, and he's having none of it. He comes up with a wild solution to the problem in a moment of desperation, and he's surprised when you actually go along with it, but anything to get a full night's sleep, right? Then he finds himself wanting a bit more than camaraderie with you in the process.

f/m, romance, fluff, does this count as crack??? popstar reader w/ a twist, ID leon is USELESS w tech + lives under a ROCK, also you manic pixie dream girl a bit too close to the sun but it's ok bc ur cute LOL

word count: 2.6k // read this chapter on ao3

a/n: req fic + belated bday gift for my lovely 🍍 anon!! as usual i got carried away and butchered it. um. NOTHING makes sense just go w the vibes i beg you </3 pt. 2 coming out asap bc this fic will not leave me alone in the best way :)

chapter one

Rule of thumb: don’t bang on the first date.

Leon’s wrapping his pillow around his head like a pair of goddamn Beefs (or is Beets? those tacky, overpriced- oh, forget it) while his upstairs neighbor gives her bed a run for its money on a Friday night, at a blessed 9 PM no less.

Oh yeah. Her.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

R-rated suspicions aside, Leon tries hoping for the best. His new neighbor might just be an interior designer of the nocturnal sort. Sick of his previous rowdy, college kid-infested apartment building, he’d moved into this complex not too long ago thanks to a very politely-worded call to Hunnigan about open listings in quiet, senior citizen-friendly neighborhoods. Call him old, call him boring, but after a long day of running around saving humanity from the newest bioweapon to hit the market, all Leon ever wants to do these days is get a few winks of sleep. He’s pushing 30. Insomnia’s no fountain of youth, people.

Thump, thump-thump-thump.

New Girl upstairs seemed to have the same idea but with far more nefarious intent. She’d moved in at the same time as him, he’s sure – Leon saw a flash of her face a few days ago when she was lugging boxes of stuff into the elevator up to her floor. She’s the only sign of life from the 21st century he’s encountered since the day he came to sign his lease papers. Why?

Because Hunnigan had fulfilled his request to a T. Leon’s new apartment building is long-term care home adjacent.

Full of grandmas and grandpas who got about as loud as their record players, only leaving their homes to fetch the mail – telegrams by the wrinkles on some of them. It was perfect. Leon was positively thrilled when Eunice from Unit 202 very, very slowly, waved hello to him on his moving day.

THUMP-THUMP! THUMP-THUMP!

And then she happened.

Maybe he’s just a grumpy old man right where he belongs, in all his 29-and-a-half glory. But the pounding that girl is giving her bed with some frat boy right now is giving Leon the college dorm experience all over again. It takes him half an hour of tossing and turning in his sheets to throw on an old jacket, beeline to the elevator, punch the neon 3 button, and darken New Girl’s doorstep.

His turn now. A quick knock, knock is enough for Unit 304’s door to open a crack.

“Hey, I’m from downst- oh my God, are you decent?”

And you, standing at the door in a dress that’s more sheer than his disbelief, only tilt your head to go, “Huh?”

“Listen, I know tomorrow’s the weekend but I- shit,” his face burns, “could you keep it down, please? You guys are really loud and it’s late.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You- you and whoever you’re with, could you not do this right now?” Leon croaks.

Your hands flail wildly in dismissal. “Oh no, that was just me jumping on my bed! Helps with my creative process,” you say, smiling weakly. “I didn’t know the floors were that thin, I’m sorry.”

Bullshit. “They are.” Leon grimaces, “And um, it’s fine if you guys are loud, just save it for when everyone’s asleep next time.”

A frown interrupts your smile. “I just said it was me. There’s no one else here, seriously.”

“So what’s with the getup?”

“The-” your eyes drift down to the near see-through of your dress and Leon gestures vaguely, as if you need more explanation to why he’s avoiding eye contact with your chest. “Oh, this?”

He nods.

“Creative process!” you chirp brightly.

“For what, pray tell?”

Curiously, that puts the wind out of your sails. Suddenly you having trouble meeting Leon’s eyes, lashes fluttering as you look up, down, anywhere that’s not his face.

“For school,” you finally make out, fingers wrapping around the edge of your door. “I’m a music major.”

Pianos and prancing on beds don’t exactly mix. He can’t help but squint at you. “And the jumping helps with…?”

“Getting past writer’s block!”

Back to bubbly with the ball in your court, you go so far as to open your door a little further to explain. Leon’s cheeks blaze as he tries his damndest to keep his eyes from drifting south.

“I read online that moving around helps with ideas, and I’m supposed to have a whole album written by the end of the week. I probably shouldn’t have procrastinated…” you trail off with a half-hearted chuckle, “so now I’m throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, y’know?”

He hums. “You wanna be a singer?”

“Mhm!” Your updone hair bobs with you, reminding him a little of a bobblehead. It’s almost cute enough to make his AMs worthwhile.

“Then you better start singing somewhere else, sweetheart. The walls are just as thin as the floors.”

And Leon immediately turns his ass around to go back to sleep.

In hindsight, it might’ve been a little mean of him to leave like that. But his bed is just so heavenly, and with the sleep deprivation he’s been racking up lately, Leon’s half sure he just dreamed that entire exchange. There’s no way a girl like you in college – in her 20s, give or take – is seriously jumping on her bed on a Friday night for a homework assignment. That too in a dress fit for the club to add to the irony. Are all creatives this weird?

He pinches the bridge of his nose as the elevator descends, pushing aside his last glimpse of the glum expression he left you with in your doorway. So much for first impressions. But hey, you didn’t really make a great one either. He’ll call it even. Maybe get you a gift basket for chivalry’s sake.

He considers all this as he slips back under his blankets, finally, at 9:45 PM.

And then he hears a creeeaaak.

“Please,” Leon groans, jamming his pillow over his ears.

Thump…thump?

Nix the gift basket.

6:00 AM on Saturday finds Leon with his eyes wide open and glazed insomniac red.

His alarm blares as if to say, you actually thought you’d need to get woken up, didn’t you?

It’s a little patronizing. He teaches it a lesson by throwing it off his nightstand.

Sometime between 11 and 12 at night, you’d gotten bored of your bed and taken to something with wheels. An office chair is Leon’s best guess. You’d rolled across your floor all night, and the resulting clatter of plastic grating on hardwood had kept him awake until the sunrise. Hangovers were more pleasant than the night of sleep (or lack thereof) he’d just gotten, and Leon’s no wimp. He’s a man, goddamnit. A decorated government agent!

So he handles the problem at its source. Whips out his flip phone like a man, and makes a very important call.

A disgruntled female voice crackles through at the first ring. “May I remind you that this line’s only for emergencies, Leon?”

“It is! I need you to find me another apartment, Hunnigan, please,” Leon sits up, rubbing his eyes to plead his case to an unimpressed Ingrid Hunnigan. “My upstairs neighbor won’t let me sleep. The floors are thin as hell and she’s been moving around all night. It’s even worse than my last place.”

“Really? An old lady is giving you that hard of a time?”

“She’s college age — a singer — and when she starts singing for her homework all the time, I’m really not going to get any sleep. I’m begging you, Hunnigan. Get me out of here.”

“Strange.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Truly,” Hunnigan deadpans. “You know how hard of a time I had getting you into an apartment building only for people over 55, Leon?”

He winces, holding the phone a little further from his ears just in case.

“How many favors I had to cash in, strings I had to pull, all because you’re hopeless at navigating an apartment listing site, let alone anything on the Internet? Do you realize I had to do that in my personal time because your request would fall under illegal use of federal intelligence resources?”

Leon falters. “I didn’t-”

“So here’s what you’re going to do,” Hunnigan says shortly. “You are going right back to your neighbor and working out a solution like an adult.”

“But I already-”

“You’re solving this on your own, Leon. Figure something out because I know you can delegate. Got it?”

He really doesn’t. He’s only good at that outside of the US.

“Is that clear, Agent Kennedy?” Hunnigan repeats for semantic measure.

“Crystal,” Leon mopes, sapped of all hope when she ends the call with a ‘good luck’, just like back in Spain. A familiar routine.

He’s back in front of Unit 304 by 9:00 AM.

You open your door with a half-chewed yawn, wrapped in a robe and looking deceptively angelic, that is, if it weren’t for the immediate pinch your pretty brows take on when you grace him with a decidedly sour look.

“Up already?” Leon tries.

This time all he gets in response is a quick nod, a mouth parted in distaste.

Forward march, Kennedy.

“You were up past midnight. I heard you, y’know, on your chair. Kinda loud.”

“I’m not annoying you on purpose,” you sigh, tucking your arms into a tight cross over the fluff of your robe. “I just really have to turn my album in on time and I’m having crazy writer’s block. They told me the people here are quiet and easygoing. I haven’t had a single noise complaint so far except for you, did you know that?”

“That’s because everyone in this building either has hearing aids or doesn’t realize they need them yet,” Leon grits. “I don’t even know how you got in here, to be honest.”

“A sparkling letter of recommendation, thank you very much. And you?” You push up on your toes indignantly. “Are you just older than you look? ‘Cause you might need a pair of hearing aids yourself.”

Leon bites back a scoff. “Don’t need ‘em. I can hear you plain as day from below.”

Sirens are starting to blare in his head and it’s like he can feel Hunnigan glaring at him from her HQ in the sky. Aborting mission again isn’t an option. If Leon doesn’t fix things now, he’d be starting bad blood that might outlast the combined remaining lifespans of the building’s tenants. His salary could cover rent that long; his ego, not so much.

You’re about two seconds away from shutting your door in Leon’s face before he interrupts with a save pulled straight from his ass: “I’ll help you write your songs.”

So instead, you squawk, “What?”

He sticks the toe of his shoe in your doorjamb for insurance. Blurts, “I mean it. I’ll help you come up with ideas.”

“How on Earth would you do that?”

Great question. No better time than the present for the both of you to find out.

“You said moving around helps?” Leon repeats for you to confirm with a quizzical nod, “I’ll take you anywhere you want. Anywhere in the city, you name it, I’ve got a motorcycle I’ll get you there on. It’ll be a change of scenery. Just whatever you do, enough with the gymnastics at midnight.”

It’s a desperate lifeline, a creepy one now that he’s had more than two seconds to think about it, but a lifeline nonetheless.

And to his horror, all you do is stare.

The resulting silence feels like crystallizing amber. A clock ticks agonizingly from somewhere in your living room. Tick, tick, shit, he desponds. But thankfully, your laugh bubbles out not a moment too soon, sending a tsunami of relief down his shoulders.

“Gymnastics, really?” you snort, covering your mouth with a well-manicured hand.

“I’m serious.” Leon shoots for a winning smile. “But I have to ask, is working late also part of your creative process?”

Your eyes crinkle maybe, but you shake your head no.

“Then we’ll go whenever you’re free. Show you a few of my favorite spots, see if it speeds up your songwriting. Sound okay, sweetheart?”

“How about now?” you pipe up.

Leon coughs his splutter into something more dignified.

“You said whenever I was free! It’s a Saturday, you’re free,” you point a finger at his chest, “I’m free,” turn it back on yourself, “and I need to finish writing my album by, like, yesterday. This is perfect!” With a miniscule squeal, you disappear back into your apartment.

Leon’s left standing in your entryway wondering when his lifeline became a dynamite detonation cord.

“You haven’t even asked me my name,” he calls out to deaf ears. Cups his hands for effect because he can hear you flinging hangers onto the floor. “Don’t they teach you about stranger danger at school?”

“I’ll find out eventually!” floats back your worrying response.

You’re an efficient dresser, Leon gives you that. A thankfully normal one too at the dress and heels you rush back up to the door with. A large pair of cat-eye sunglasses perched on the bridge of your nose makes Leon do a double take at the cloudy sky outside, but then again, maybe it’s another part of your creative process. Beyond his pay grade.

You adjust your sunnies with gusto, grin up at him when he gives you a curious look.

“Well, go on,” you say, pulling out your phone.

Leon blinks at the glowing rectangle.

“Number, name?” You tilt it as if you’re trying to entice a toddler. “I can’t just keep calling you Mr. Noise Complaint.”

“Aw, you’ve been telling your friends about me?” Leon chuckles at last, pulling out his flip phone and handing it to you.

And suddenly it’s your turn to stare at a piece of foreign technology.

You take your sweet time putting in your number. It’s very entertaining, the way the tip of your tongue sticks out the tiniest bit when you make a mistake and the sound of furious keypad backspacing follows right after. Leon’s no better, setting himself on your phone as “LOEN KEENAYD”, and with his pride bordering on hubris, he has no choice but to keep it that way.

“Really small backspace key,” he fibs when you peer at the gibberish in your contacts.

Your lip bite makes for a piss-poor job of hiding how funny it is.

“It’s Leon, by the way. Leon Kennedy. Apartment 204.”

You fix his name in half the time it took him to put it in. He holds his hand out for a shake, timeless enough, and you give it three businesslike pumps.

“I have to grab a spare helmet from my place, I’ll meet you down at the garage,” Leon promises.

You point at him before stepping into the elevator. “Either your idea works or I’ll have to work past midnight to get this album done and then you’ll really owe me, Leon.”

In another life, you could’ve been a CEO. You’ve certainly got the pointer finger for it.

Leon tips his chin in acknowledgment. “Whatever it takes to get back into your good graces, ma’am,” he grins.

That gets a cackle out of you as the elevator doors slide shut.

And he takes the stairs this time, waves good morning to Eunice in 215 on his way to pick up that helmet for you. It must be a good day, Leon thinks, sounding out your name in his phone’s contacts. Eunice even has a post- Great Depression era vinyl playing on her record player. Maybe it’s a sign to not be so glum about his situation. He’s finally fixing it, isn’t he?

So be it. A guy can dream. In Leon’s case, he’s hoping he gets eight hours by Monday.

psst, find more of my work here!

comments and reblogs are very much appreciated <3 take care and i love you!

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skzdarlings · 3 months ago

Text

bodyguard: the first guard | part four | chan/reader

masterlist.

(part one of the previous story.)

( read on AO3 )

A sequel to the Bodyguard. Miroh’s daughter is assigned a bodyguard of her own. The past is confronted when old friendships and new enemies are pushed to the brink.

pairing: bang chan/reader content info: sequel to the bodyguard (felix/reader). this is a new reader perspective. this chapter contains explicit sexual content. this chapter also has a content warning for descriptions of torture and dehumanization. the previously established story dynamics are prevalent. chapter word count: 14,600 words.

enjoy <3

B E F O R E

Felix is with the enemy. He let himself be taken.

Losing a fight was the only way to win. The enemy is well-fortified, his defences impenetrable, but offensive strikes are not a strength. The best of his men are no match for Felix, not their force or their taunting or threatening. They can torture him. They can hurt him. It is literal child’s play, every move a textbook manoeuvre from his childhood training.

After some prodding, coercion, and violence, someone decides to send word up the chain of command. It reaches the ear of the enemy, and now Felix is cuffed to a chair in some kind of warehouse, waiting to meet a monster.

The man finally strides into the room. He is average height, average build, with cold eyes but a dull demeanour.

Felix was hoping for a nightmare. Maybe that would have helped justify some of it. But the immense nothingness of the man is infuriating. This? Everything they did, everything Felix did, was because of this? Just another pathetic man hurting the weak with someone else’s hands.

The enemy stands above Felix and his shadow feels no different than Miroh.

That is how Felix rationalizes it, even with a roiling stomach as he sits beneath that man. A shadow will fall, one way or the other. His choice is no choice at all: two dark paths, neither with a light at the end.

Felix is not here to save himself. His mission is to save Chris. That is all that matters now.

“You work for Miroh,” the enemy says. “Or is that worked, if my men are to be believed?”

“That’s right,” Felix says. He sees the flicker of surprise in the enemy’s eyes. Felix’s voice has already dropped and its darker, deeper tone always surprises people. It counters his youth, his soft face, makes the enemy look twice and consider him more carefully.

Felix is everything Miroh wanted his soldiers to be. He is easy to misjudge, overlook, underestimate, but competent, deadly, and loyal to a single, unmoving cause.

Thinking of Chris, Felix says, “I know how to end this.”

His throat is dry, his voice rough. He drags it up, propelled by the pounding of his desperate heart.

“I know Miroh’s next move,” Felix says. “I know where he’ll be. I know what he’s planning. I know how to interfere. But we both know you’re the only one who can really do it.”

Flattery takes the enemy from wary to invested. He is so easy to read, more childish than Felix ever was. It is infuriating. It takes all his strength for Felix to grit his teeth and restrain himself, to not rip out of his bonds and destroy this shadow of a man.

But this is not about Felix.

“What is it you think you know?” the enemy asks.

Felix smiles, a soft, disarming smile, practiced from a lifetime of subterfuge. A lie on his face, but coupled with the truth. He thinks about everything he has done and everything he will do.

Felix says, “Everything.”

P R E S E N T D A Y

Two days ago, you were running missions for your father. You kept your head down and strove for the best, blindly believing your compliance would lead somewhere worthwhile. The ends would justify the means. You would prove yourself and everything would come together.

Now, your only plan is to tear it all apart.

Your father is dead. You are miles from the world he created, off the edge of every map he ever drew. You stare down a long, dark path with no seeming end.

You think of your friend and find the strength to place one foot in front of the other.

It is something you should have done a long time ago, but there is no time to linger in past feelings. Not the guilt of years ago, not the pain of a few days, and not the embarrassment of last night.

You lift your head as Chan approaches the park bench. Your first order of business was acquiring basic necessities, so you left the motel and ventured out. It required more than a little theft and cunning, but now you are both dressed in civilian clothes, better blending in with your surroundings.

Chan went to grab some food while you sat and mapped out a basic strategy. He has followed your lead in every regard, including conversation. You have not spoken a word about last night so neither has he, but it sits between you like a tangible block. Your eyes meet and speak without the help of words. Who are you? you seem to ask each other, and neither has an answer.

Miroh’s first guard. You think of him in the ring. You imagine him in even darker shadows. It is impossible to reconcile that soldier with the man who comforted you, who tucked you into bed, who sat with you until you fell asleep.

Miroh’s daughter. It is just as impossible to reconcile the soldier you were with the woman who not only broken down crying, but let someone comfort her with so much tenderness.

You look at each other, a flash of something between you, then you clear your throat and look away and hope it disappears.

Chan sits beside you on the bench. He hands you a sandwich.

“What next?” he asks, then takes a bite of his own.

You are both in blue jeans and flannels, baseball caps tugged over your eyes. You keep to a quiet space in the park, but there are still civilians nearby. You watch some kids throw a ball around. You don’t have much of an appetite, but your body needs sustenance if you want to heal properly. Much as you would prefer to dive into the mission, ignoring your own wellbeing, an unbalanced fight will not save Changbin.

You take a bite of your sandwich and pass the notebook to Chan.

“I’ve made a list of the main research facilities,” you say. “My father implied Changbin would be used for study so I don’t think he’s being held at any training base. I’ve ranked the research facilities in order of likelihood based on their location and general field of focus.”

Chan nods, looking over the list. You stare at him while he reads.

You need to say something. Each bite of food is excruciating because it is fighting the pit in your stomach. You are a tangle of embarrassment, confusion, and unfamiliar emotions you cannot name. Finding the right words is physically painful.

You rub the bridge of your nose and steady your breathing. Chan looks at you with an inquisitive tilt of his head, but he looks away when your eyes meet.

“I’m sorry,” you say. Despite your preparation, it is more of a blurt. “For last night, I mean.”

You cringe thinking about it, but addressing it finally alleviates the weight in your gut. You fiddle with the wrapping to your sandwich, staring at the ground and pointedly not at him.

“It’s not like me,” you say. “The past couple days, it’s just…”

“It’s fine,” Chan says. When you scoff, he bumps his shoulder against yours. “Seriously, you don’t have to apologize. Can’t really blame you, ya know, considering everything.”

“I’ve dealt with some crazy fucking circumstances,” you say. “And I’ve never…” Mortification settles as you recall last night, which drudges up all those feelings again. It twists together inside you. You put the sandwich down and rub your eyes. “I just don’t feel like myself at all.” It is a resigned admittance, sitting at the crux of everything. You are lost without your father’s map, even though you know it is better off burned. “I just don’t know how everything used to feel so easy. It’s like I’m a stranger and the whole world is just as foreign. My father drew a perfect map of his world and now I’m way off the grid.”

“Maybe it’s time to draw a new one,” Chan says.

You look at each other. You are both hunched over, elbows on your knees, bodies inclined just barely towards each other where your knees almost touch. His face is bare and yours is scarred, his tone sincere and voice as raw as yours.

The dark path ahead seems a little less daunting.

There is one more thing you have to say, and this one is even harder, mixed up with embarrassment.

Sheepishly, you say, “Also, uh… thank you. For what you did last night.”

Chan laughs, just a breath of a sound, and there is some colour in his cheeks. He deflects the gratitude with more awkwardness than the apology, stammering on some vague denial.

“Nah, nah, it’s fine, you know,” he says, then says it a dozen more times.

If crying was a break from your usual character, the little grin on your face is even more alien. But it’s there, admittedly amused as you watch the most lethal weapon in Miroh’s arsenal stumble over his words. His hair is over his ears, his hat over that, but you can see where they start to darken with a blush. You had no idea the First Guard could go so red. Maybe that’s why he has to wear a mask, you think to yourself, tickled.

But now is not the time for teasing. You bump his knee with your own then pick up your sandwich. Your appetite has returned, little by little, the worst of that pit closing.

“Yeah, just… think nothing of it,” he says.

“I’ll try,” you say, cringing.

He pats your knee consolingly, then he smiles, light-hearted, looking at you with a goofy wink. “Next time it’ll be me and you can help me out,” he says. “Then we’ll be even.”

He goes back to eating his sandwich, his attention straying to the kids and their ball game. You look at him a moment longer.

If it had been him who broke down last night, you are not sure what you would have done. But he voices such an honest belief that you would return the favour, so you cannot help but believe he might be right.

The day is spent driving. You steal a different vehicle, losing the last traceable item from the fallen facility. You replace it with something a little faster and more efficient on the road.

Once you are in the car, the conversation stays professional. Today you plan to scout the perimeter of the targeted facility on foot. It should have a secondary security outpost that will be easier to breach, at least with your skills and inside knowledge.

Chan will cover most of the physicality as he insists you need another day of recuperation before launching a proper attack. You begrudgingly admit he is right, even though you want to charge the facility to second it is in sight.

Changbin could be in there right now, separated from you by cement walls and nothing more. You look at the building as you circle it. Your heart pounds, leaping as if magnetized to your friend’s potential proximity. It makes you want to leap the wall and fight everything in your path.

Like he knows what you’re thinking, Chan nudges you. He tips his head, gesturing to the direction you need to go. You huff but follow. This is your plan and you made it for a reason.

You reach the security outpost. After Chan incapacitates the guards, you will have sparse minutes for action and acquisition.

Chan lays down the unconscious guards while you gather your intel. You know where to look, unlike an enemy or third party, so you can use the short allotted time to your advantage.

You see there were deliveries made over the past couple days, but it is unclear what they entailed. It could be anything from equipment to a body. You save the information and run through the security logs so you can strategize a full-proof infiltration plan for tomorrow night.

While you work, Chan embarks on his own search, finding a few weapons and packing them in a duffel bag.

He claps you on the shoulder with less than a minute to spare. You take your hard drive and notes, he takes his bag and guns, and you are out the door.

Back in the car, he sits in the passenger seat, assembling a gun while you drive. Your eyes are on the road but your mind is in the mission, running schematics and floor plans and security details.

Your mind jumps frantically from one thought to the next. Thinking of security logs reminds you of the information you obtained about the enemy. You told Changbin about it a couple nights ago, but it lost importance in the midst of all your personal drama. Now your mind returns there.

Miroh’s team acquired the security information from the house that night, but they overlooked the most glaringly obvious discrepancy. They were so preoccupied with the system itself that they did not notice how much of it had been scrubbed by someone who knew what they were doing, someone who had a reason to hide what transpired.

Maybe it means nothing. Maybe it means everything.

“What’s up?” Chan says, noticing you are deep in thought.

You glance at him, shaking your head as you return to the present. You have your hands full with dismantling Miroh’s regime that the dead enemy should not really matter anymore, but it will not leave your head. The weirdness of that whole situation sits in the nucleus of everything else. The enemy’s collapse sent your father spiralling, his fears driving him straight into a self-fulfilling prophecy of destruction. In a way, you are only here because of what happened that night.

“Just thinking,” you say, struggling to summarize the tumult of thought.

“About?” he prompts when you stall. He lifts an eyebrow. “Something I can help with? Or like… something personal…?”

“Neither really,” you say. “It’s about my father’s enemy. You know my father had a lot of enemies, but… he had one that rivalled them all.”

“I know who you mean,” he says. “I didn’t really run any missions involving him, because, you know, Miroh thought it was useless to waste my skills there. The enemy was pretty well-defended. Nothing got in or out.”

“Makes sense,” you reply. “The enemy was watched more than pursued. I actually ran a lot of those missions.”

You were with the enemy while Chan was everywhere else. It is why you never really crossed paths. You knew the outcomes of his missions because it often impacted lines of business, but you did not see him. He was a weapon at your father’s disposal, less than a human and more than a soldier.

“Yeah,” Chan says, echoing that thought. “Miroh thought I would be more useful… other places.”

You look at him again. He is looking out the window, his own gaze pensive. You do not push for more detail, knowing well enough how gory and intense some of his missions were. It makes you aware of who is in this car, the weapons at his feet, the gun in his lap.

You find you are not that frightened, which is frightening in its own way.

You look at him in his flannel and baseball cap. You think about him earlier, laughing as he watched some kids playing games in the park. You picture that face in the shadows, a gloved hand around a neck, a gun in his hand, the trigger practically a part of him. It makes your heart pang.

“Anyway, what about it?” Chan asks, looking at you.

“Never mind,” you say, discombobulated as you are inundated with images of Chan’s missions. You shake your head. “It’s probably nothing,” you add. “It doesn’t matter. They’re all dead anyway.”

There is a moment of silence, then he asks, “Did we ever find out what happened that night?” His voice is a little smaller, like the question weighs heavy on his tongue. Like he also knows this new world is spinning on the axis of everything destroyed that night.

“No,” you say. You grip the steering wheel a little tighter. “And the last person who had any contact with them is being held somewhere.”

“Changbin,” Chan says.

“Changbin,” you say.

Your mind runs away again, thinking about the way Changbin talked about that mission. Or rather, the things he did not talk about. He never officially reported the details of his altercation with Felix. He never reported the fact Felix asked about Chris.

As if he can hear your thoughts, Chan asks, “Felix is dead too, isn’t he?”

Lee Felix was raised in the young soldier program with the rest of you, but you don’t remember much of him from childhood, just one face among many. Then he betrayed the operation. Miroh was securing some contracts that the enemy was also eying, and Felix was assigned to a major mission that would procure the venture. You were not on that mission, but you later learned how it was infiltrated by the enemy, how Miroh was blindsided and attacked in a rare moment of weakness instigated by the same traitor who sold out their location in the first place.

Felix got away.

Several agents died in the confrontation. By that point, other child soldiers had died on other missions. Only a few of you remained. Chan, Changbin, you. Felix was recruited by the enemy. He became a grating sore in the operation’s side. Somehow, the enemy utilizing one of Miroh’s best soldiers as a glorified babysitter was more offensive than using him for military tactics. Even by doing nothing, your father’s enemy boasted over him. Look what I have and I don’t even need it, while you fight for everything.

That was how your father put it. He always looked at the offense, the wrong-doing, the betrayal.

He never saw anything else. Just like he never saw your friendship with Changbin.

You think Felix and Chan were also friends once, maybe, or something like it. Felix would have no way of knowing what became of Chan after he left. Maybe he cared. Maybe his motivations were more complicated than an opportunistic betrayal for the sake of itself.

You look at Chan. His body is holding a lot of tension, his fingers curling and uncurling over his knee. A muscle feathers in his jaw when he clenches it.

“Yes,” you say. “Felix died that night with the rest of them.”

Chan exhales. His whole face is shadowed with the furrow of his brow.

“I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him. We all made difficult decisions, I guess,” you say, thinking of how to approach this conversation because there is a darkness to Chan that feels more like the First Guard. “He, uh, he asked about you apparently.”

“About me,” Chris says flatly. “What about me?”

“About what happened to you,” you say. “I guess he wouldn’t have known what happened after he left. Changbin, uh, Changbin told him you died.”

Chan is quiet for a moment, just staring across the dashboard at the stretch of highway. The sun is starting to set behind the trees, casting an orange glow in the vehicle. It brightens his eyes even while his whole countenance seems to darken.

Then he laughs. It is abrupt and harsh with no genuine humour whatsoever. He rubs his jaw and shakes his head.

“I guess that’s one way of putting it, yeah?” he says dryly.

“I’m sorry,” you say.

“What for?”

“I don’t know, I guess it just—” You glance at him. He is still staring ahead, his shoulders locked with tension. “None of this is easy. I get it. You have every right to be upset.”

“Upset,” Chan says as if the word is totally foreign. It lingers in his mouth. He chews the thought over. The fierceness of his gaze reminds you of the guard that sits behind a mask – intense and dangerous.

“I guess I am upset,” he says slowly. “It means I don’t get to kill him myself.”

The response startles you. You anticipated this conversation taking a totally different trajectory.

Your glance flicks between the road and Chan. He goes back to fidgeting with the gun. His hand movements are firmer, more deliberate, the click-shuffle-click more pronounced.

It is a very unfortunate and wildly inappropriate time to find him attractive. The realization hits you all at once, leaving more whiplash than a hit to the head. You watch his quick and competent hands do what they do best. Coupled with his sudden intensity, it feels like a punch to your core.

You want to offer a remark, some acknowledgement of his thoughts, but it gets garbled in the mess of feelings. It is not like you to get so flustered. You are not used to it.

You clear your throat and look ahead. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him tilt his head.

“What?” he asks. “The guy’s a traitor, isn’t he?”

“It’s not that.”

“Huh? Then what is it?”

“Nothing,” you reply.

“Nothing? You have a weird look on your face.”

“No, I don’t.”

The First Guard, Miroh’s weapon, assassin and spy and deadly agent, reaches across the console and pokes your cheek.

“Stop that,” you say. “I’m fine.”

He laughs and this laugh is sincere. You try to school your expression but the damage is evidently done because he is clearly aware he has you flustered.

You bat his hand away. Even worse than finding him physically attractive, you are a little enamoured with the sound of his laugh. It feels much better than the tension from before. You feel your own chest lifting with a clear breath.

“Just thinking about yesterday,” you lie, but now you are thinking about yesterday and how you abruptly kissed him, which makes you more flustered and makes his dimples more pronounced. Refusing to look at him, you tightly grip the wheel and say, “Sorry, by the way.”

“For?” He sounds amused.

“Kissing you.”

“Ah.” He pokes your cheek again, dodging your hand. “I thought I told you to stop apologizing to me.”

“That’s different,” you say. “Especially after everything else you told me.”

Chan has spent most of his life in the forced employ of someone else, using his body to one end or another. He told you as much last night. In light of that, spontaneously kissing him without warning feels wrong, even if you were panicked and not thinking.

He goes quiet. After a beat, he says, “I didn’t tell you that so you would pity me.”

“Well, why did you then?” you ask. You can admit you were forward last night because that is just how you are. Sexual desire is just another bodily function that needs satisfying. He was the one who continued the conversation after it ended.

“Well,” he says. “I trust you.”

“Right.” The honest simplicity just flusters you more. “Good to know.”

The car is very silent after that. Or maybe the rest of the world gets louder – the cars whizzing down the highway, the wind against the glass. Even the sun seems to fizzle in the darkening sky.

You swear you can hear his heart beating, fast, or maybe that is your own.

“It’s fine,” he breaks the long silence.

“Huh?”

You glance at him which is a mistake, because he turns his head to you, his dimples deep with the cheekiness of his smile.

“it’s fine that you kissed me,” he says.

People have outright propositioned you for explicit sexual acts and none of those come-ons ever garnered half as much heat as that simple, stupid line.

You bat it down instinctively, swallowing hard. His earlier intensity sparked your adrenaline and your body confused it for something else. That must be it. You don’t get flustered and heated like this, not so fast and not so deeply.

“Well,” you say firmly. “Don’t worry because it won’t happen again.”

“Oh?” he asks, still too amused.

Desperate to even the playing field and knock those dimples down, you grin and employ your own simple frankness.

“Tell you what,” you say. “You can fuck me all you want, but no kissing. How’s that sound?”

It works. He chokes on a nervous laugh and turns completely red. He looks away while rubbing his neck and it’s your turn to laugh.

The sound of your own laughter surprises you, the adrenaline in your chest suffusing to something gentler. For a moment, in the middle of all the anxiety and worry and terror, you feel a flicker of delight.

When you look at him, your eyes meet in a shared moment of mirth, that setting golden light flooding the car. It feels strange to smile so sincerely, but it does not feel wrong. It feels like a moment you did not realize you had been waiting for.

None of the safe houses are safe. Miroh is dead but his operation is running in fragmented pieces, so there are eyes on those houses. You stick with cheap motels for now, the little crevices and unassuming places forgotten by the passing world.

Chan lifted some money from a register at a closed service station, so you use that cash to pay for a room. It makes you think about crime, petty and big, about Miroh and his enemies, soldiers and civilians. About the ends justifying the means, and what taking down Miroh’s operation will entail.

“Ready for another fight?” you ask. You and Chan are sitting at the small table in the little kitchenette, drafting plans for tomorrow’s night infiltration.

“Always,” he says with a sigh, but smiles at you.

You take the first shower tonight. You feel better and your reinvigorated energy makes you even more restless. It feels like a waste of time, sitting here while Changbin is out there, but you know you will be in better shape tomorrow when all your plans can come together.

For now, you prepare your own weapons and combat clothes, laying everything out while Chan showers.

Your eyes lift when he emerges from the washroom, strolling into the room with nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips.

You stare at him because of course you do, and he looks at you with a raised eyebrow because of course he does. That cheeky smile returns and he says, “What?”

“Nothing,” you reply, frowning, looking back at your things. “Just restless.”

“You should do some push-ups,” he says.

Ugh, this guy, you think, looking up at him again. His back is to you as he stands over his bag, shifting around for some clean clothes. A snarky reply is on your tongue but then he drops his towel, silencing you as swiftly. You blink in surprise at his bare backside then look away, hot in the face.

“You know what,” you say. “Maybe I will do some push-ups.”

He chuckles and continues dressing himself while you go through a small exercise routine to expel your excess energy. It honestly works and it feels good to get some muscles moving again.

You are not totally invulnerable, but the hormone supplements administered in your childhood ensure that your healing is a little quicker than average. The worst of the pain will pass so you can fight without distraction tomorrow night. The only thing that will remain will be the scars.

You sit at the foot of your bed and touch the scar on your palm. You wonder if Changbin is sitting somewhere, touching his own scar, and you wonder if he thinks it was worth it – all of it, his whole life, offering it up to save you.

“All good?” Chan asks, a little more seriously. He is closer than you realized, standing near the bed.

You nod, closing your hand into a fist. “Yeah,” you say. “We just… We have to find him.”

You can feel yourself drifting, thoughts taking over. You stare down at the ground.

Chan touches your shoulder, just enough to draw you out of that reverie before you sink too far. You look up slowly. The back of his fingers brush your cheek before he drops his hand to his side. It feels like he touched you with a firework, a trail of heat sparkling along your cheek. You dig your nails into your palm because you do not feel like you should indulge that sort of feeling while Changbin is hurting for you.

“I know,” Chan says. “We will. But he wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself or give yourself up, would he?”

You stop clenching. You release a breath you did not realize you were holding.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “Sorry. You’re right.”

You blink quickly, surprised when knocks his knuckles under your chin, a teasing little touch.

“Told you to stop apologizing,” he says, then winks and steps away.

Your dreams that night are tumultuous but not as torturous. You don’t sleep as heavily so it is easier to snap out of them.

Chan is a light sleeper and the sound of you jolting awake stirs him as well. You apologize after a few times, his groggy voice sleepily assuring you that it’s fine. That rough sound scratches your brain, tingling down your spine as you close your eyes to sleep again.

You dream of a different touch, no violence or pain, just fingers trailing softly across your cheek. Your eyes are closed but you can feel it, a lightning spark ignited under the stroke of those fingers. You tilt your face up and take in a deep breath. It fills your whole body with warmth, makes your heart race and skin heat. The touch curls under your chin and you follow where that hand guides you, eyes closed and mouth open.

Your breath is stolen by a kiss. You know this is a dream because real kisses never feel this way. They are just a touch, no different than any other.

This touch is different. It overwhelms with its gentleness, a caress more thorough and claiming than every rough kiss exchanged in a heated moment that inevitably cooled. This one does not cool, does not even simmer, but burns hotly, endlessly. Even when your lips part for air, heat lingers between you. Your fingers twitch, coming to life with the desire to touch.

You wake before that.

It is still night. You glance at the clock then across the room. Chan’s bed is empty and it startles you, snapping you from half-conscious to fully awake. You sit up in bed. The panicked race of your heart putters to a slower cadence when you see him. He is sitting at the table in the kitchenette, near the open window. The neon light from the motel’s NO VACANCY sign bathes him in a cascade of red.

“All good?” Chan asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “I just—” You look at the empty bed then at him.

“Sorry,” he says, sheepish. “Couldn’t sleep. When that happens, feels better to just look at the plans, you know?”

You nod. You understand completely.

“More bad dreams?” he asks.

“Sometimes it feels like a memory,” you say, thinking of every nightmare, then thinking of your dream. There was no reality in that fantasy, but you swear your cheek still tingles. Embarrassed, you lay back down and turn away. You stare at the wall.

To your horror, you find yourself blinking back tears. The night is clearly not your friend, overwhelming you with every thought and fear and memory, every emotion you do not know you were capable of feeling.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Chan says. “I promise. You can sleep.”

“Okay,” you say softly.

I trust you, he said with so much earnest simplicity. It is hard, but you return the sentiment and close your eyes.

The next night is a very different scenario. There is no opportunity for good or bad dreams, for quiet phrases and glances that you would not dare exchange in the light.

You and Chan spent the day in preparation, practiced some moves, pored over your plans. Your adrenaline builds and builds. By nightfall, you are bursting with a desire for action.

The night does not feel quiet or still, the very air around you vibrating with the shuddering power of your determination.

“Careful in there,” Chan says.

You look at him. He is not wearing the mask, not yet, but he is the soldier you first encountered. Earlier, you watched as he slicked back his hair and darkened his eyes as part of his preparation, turning himself into a strange, intimidating figure. His transformation is so all-encompassing, your heart palpitates with nerves whenever you meet his eye.

“This is gonna be a shitshow when we start taking it apart,” he continues. “After we find him, when we start hitting marks and tripping lines, it’s gonna be fast.”

First you will look for Changbin, then you will go after everything else in that facility. Wiping data, disabling networks, making the entire operation unusable. You know some agents will move onto the next one, but you’ll follow. You will follow all of your father’s work and you won’t stop until you have destroyed it all. If it means tearing out one brick at a time, that is what you will do.

You tug at a clasp to ensure your armaments are locked in place. Chan secures his mask. You nod at each other, then you advance.

It becomes abundantly obvious very quickly that this facility does not have active test subjects, just data and back-logged research storage. The deliveries were mostly data transfers and hard copies of research for ongoing trials.

That means Changbin is definitely not in this building, but you try to keep your energy up. While Changbin is not here, there should be information about his actual whereabouts. The fight is not over. Far from it.

“I’ll be across the hall,” Chan says. “Radio if something trips. We won’t have long.”

The literal fight is only half the work and not more the prevalent half. You and Chan take a system each and spend most of the night looking through files. You would rather punch something, your adrenaline still so keyed, but you put it in reserve for now.

You move and erase certain files, sifting for relevant information and finding none.

You snap upright when a related subject finally appears. You lean closer to the screen. This entire folder seems dedicated to human test subjects. The fact the folder is so big already has you nauseated. Then again, you are not surprised. You were one of those subjects, living proof of a military experiment.

You cannot find anything about the special-ops program in this folder. That means no data on Changbin, past or present. Instead, it looks like years and years of logs tracking a single experiment.

TEST SUBJECT I : SOLDIERING RECONFIGURATION

You see the word soldier and click.

No. This is definitely not Changbin or the special-ops program. You read and realize this particular experiment was something else entirely.

You look at the date. This began a long time ago. There are long memos and notes about ‘reconfiguring’ mental processes, utilizing the brain’s trauma to suppress memory through torture.

You have seen a lot of dark things, but nothing like this. Your stomach turns over itself, balking at the horror, the detailed descriptions of severe electro-shock and drowning, of starvation and long isolation.

Subject is presented with an unchanging control from which comparison can be made.

Subject recognizes control after one round of treatment.

This is worse than a fight. A fight you can control through retaliation. This, you just have to endure, your heart pounding as evocative images of dehumanization unfold before you.

They tortured someone into forgetting everything. Turned them into the perfect soldier.

Eleventh round of treatment – some effect is beginning to take. Not a recommended course of action on regular humans. Hormonal-supplement medicine improved durability.

Subject will need to be brought in on a semi-regular basis to maintain stasis.

There is a long list of all the dates and times the so-called subject was brought in. It spans years, all the way up until recently. A session was schedule two weeks ago but it was not completed.

You sit back, the white screen blaring in your face, your stomach a sickly iron weight.

Chan.

The subject is completely, irrevocably Bang Chan. You wish it wasn’t true but you know, deep down, it undoubtedly is.

The incomplete session must account for his recent behaviour. If he was not brought in for a reconfiguration within the allotted time, that might explain his deviation from expectation, his raw humanity and his spontaneous decision to join you.

It is unbearable, imagining all that torture.

He was just a boy.

Your throat cloys, feeling tight with suffocation as you imagine the darkness of a narrow well and cold water closing in around you. You close the file then look away from the screen, the shadowed room even darker after ripping your gaze away from the light. You feel that darkness tighten around you. You close your eyes, shake your head.

Though you never imagined the details, you knew Miroh did something awful to make a boy a thing. Especially that boy. For as long as you can remember, gossip about the First Guard has been whispered in every corner of the operation. Those who knew a young Bang Christopher Chan talked about the overnight change. One day he was a rebellious child, throwing tantrums in front of Miroh himself, and the next day he was complying with the worst of orders in his name.

Some people joked it was all about the bloodlust, that Chan was inherently built to be violent, steeped and raised in it. They said it came naturally to him, that he was just waiting for an opportunity to be that vicious.

You know better. You have seen glimpses of the man who spent years in Miroh’s mask, and that man has nothing in common with the First Guard. That soldier, the agent with the highest clearest level missions, with the most destruction in his wake, is not Chan. Whoever Bang Chan really is, it is not the monster that Miroh made him.

“You’ll wanna see this.”

Chan’s voice breaks the silence. You jump out of your skin with a horrible hiss, startling him in return.

“Whoa,” he says. “What is it?”

You do not hide your expression fast enough. He quickly ducks down to look in your face, those dark eyes intensely focussed. He asks something through the mask – what’s wrong, you think – but it sounds foggy and faraway. Your eyes are locked on his. The rest of the world falls away.

You reach for him without conscious thought. It is the instinctive search for a hand in the dark, a desperate grasp shooting across cold water for a lifeline.

He blinks quickly, surprised when you touch his face with both hands. He stiffens but does not stop you from removing his mask. Only when his face is clear do you come back to yourself.

Sorry forms on your lips, but you remember he said to stop apologizing. Besides, your voice is shot even though you have been sitting in silence.

You place the mask on the desk and shake your head.

Chan looks at you, then his gaze flicks to the empty screen and back.

“What is it?” he asks again, softer this time. “What did you find?”

The document mentioned the subject had a resistance to abrupt reminders. Too much sudden information could trigger the trauma response. It is better to ease the subject into slow recollection.

“Nothing,” you say. Your voice comes out rough so you clear your throat. “It’s nothing important. Just – Miroh. Some dark stuff. You know.”

He scrutinizes you for another second. His hand hovers like he might touch you, but he eventually curls his fingers and drops it.

“Okay,” he says, wary.

“What did you find?” you ask, because he burst in here with an exclamation.

He smiles. It is not a huge smile, but it looks like Chan peeking through the soldier’s mask – the one he wears even when the literal mask has fallen. It puts you at ease.

“I found him,” Chan says.

Your heart skips a beat as you are reminded of your real mission. You eagerly take the papers that Chan offers.

“Not literally, of course,” Chan says. “But look—”

The document explicitly names Seo Changbin, with the correct description of his medical history and occupation in the Miroh’s order. It doesn’t say where he is behind held, just that he has been relocated from the main base. It says he must be kept under more intense security than the main research facility can provide.

It also provides a detailed schedule for the work and tests that have been administered so far – blood samples, urine samples, even skin samples – and it states that he will be kept for more tests and evaluations. He is to be held for two weeks before more intensive studies can be conducted. It is imperative that he does not weaken or die, as he is the only viable study subject.

A massive weight lifts off your shoulders. Changbin is not here but he is alive and unharmed. It seems they are keeping him in a state of mellowed sedation and do not want to move him around.

Though you do not know where he is precisely, you know he is stationary. He is probably not too far from this one if they were concerned about security in relocation.

“We got him,” you say. Your brain is already racing ahead, narrowing down the most likely bases and what infiltration will entail. You look at Chan and your smile returns, brightening with the light in your chest. “We can actually do this,” you say. Until now, you believed it because you had to believe it, because you stubbornly refused any alternative.

But Changbin is alive. You can rescue him.

You can also eliminate a lot of other bad things while you do it.

“We still have work here,” you say.

“You’re not wrong,” Chan says, grinning. “Found some files with some political figures who probably… definitely… don’t want their affiliation getting out.”

That blatant rebellious streak fills you with even more hope.

You get to work. In the end, some alarms are tripped and you are not out before security arrives.

“You ready for that fight?” Chan asks, already drawing a weapon.

“Always,” you reply.

You fight together. You think of all that detailed violence and you funnel it into something good. You were made to fight and it does not scare you, not when it’s like this. You are far more scared of not fighting back. You will never sit back again.

You and Chan have a complimentary fight style. You were both raised in the same program, so that makes sense, but there are instinctive openings you fill, a swift understanding that does not need words. Like your eyes meeting across a park bench, you connect on another level. It is like you have fought together a million times before.

When you are done, Chan takes a turn at the wheel. The windows are rolled down and you have a few shiny new scars, but you feel good, hopeful, free. You see a light at the end of the darkness. You are not scared of the fight to get there.

Your adrenaline is still pumping when you get back to the motel. The dawn is entering twilight, streaks of light slashing across the dark sky. It is swallowed up by rainclouds but the promise of daylight persists despite the gloom. You feel like you could wrestle the sun itself, no power too great.

You also know you are running on fumes of a long, adrenaline-fueled night. You are definitely going to crash, especially when several nights of bad sleep catch up to you. But first you need to come down from that high, blood still pumping a mile a minute.

Chan exhales, clearly just as keyed. He shakes out his shoulders and stretches his neck this way and that. He sits on a chair to unlace his boots. He looks down as he says, “You can have the first shower.”

You look at him. Against all odds, you are both here, rebelling against everything that was engrained in you. You can appreciate that more now that you have some relief regarding the mission.

Despite the effort to control and change you, you made it to this place together. You are free. Your lives are yours for the first time.

You open the top few clasps of your combat shirt.

“We’re both pretty messy,” you say.

He drops one of his boots with a clunk then starts on the next one.

“Yeah,” he says, laughing. “That’s fine, though. Just be quick.”

He discards the other boot and lifts his head. His gaze looks even more intense with the dark lines traced around his brown eyes. A single curl escapes his smoothed back hair, curling in an endearing tuft over his forehead. He is still breathing a little hard, his combat shirt also unclasped, the skin of his neck sweaty.

When those dark eyes collide with yours, your thundering heart pounds faster. His gaze briefly, thoughtlessly, flicks down your body then back up. Heat thunders through you and it has nothing to do with a fight.

He sits straighter, holding your gaze in his.

“Hey,” he says softly. “What’s up?”

“I know I asked before, and I know I said it jokingly,” you say. “But I think we understand each other better now. I’m not asking or demanding anything. I’m just letting you know. I think sex is a good way to expend energy. I think the fast pleasure is good for the brain as much as the body. It’s like exercise. I know we both have complicated pasts but I’m okay with that. With me. With you. I don’t care about the past and I’m not looking for a future. If you’re interested in right now, so am I.”

You push open the bathroom door. His eyes are rivetted to you but his expression is unreadable.

You undo another clasp and shrug.

“You know where to find me,” you say, then step into the bathroom.

You are not sure what to expect from him. You cannot even anticipate your own reactions. You are startled by the erratic pounding of your heart and the nervous twist in your gut. You chalk it up to the crazy evening, to the even crazier week. It is another reason to seek release, to ground yourself in your body and forget about everything else.

You strip down, leaving the sweaty and bloody clothes in a heap. The hot water is a balm. You close your eyes, letting the simple pleasure wash over you.

You rub a sore shoulder. The muscle loosens under the heat of the water. Your hand wanders, fingertips skimming your arm.

You seldom picture a particular person when you touch yourself, hardly caring about the identity of your partner even when they are in front of you, but you cannot escape the vision of a dark pair of eyes.

Your breath catches. Your head tips back. Your hand wanders across the curve of your chest, palm across each sensitive peak, sending pleasant sparks shooting downward. Your hand follows that path, stopping just short of its destination when the door opens.

You look over your shoulder. The glass door has not fogged much so you see Chan in the doorway. He looks as dishevelled as you left him. Those dark eyes are slow in their wandering perusal down your body. It feels like fireworks again, sparking everywhere he looks.

You turn a little more. He looks up. His brow furrows like he is scrutinizing you, like maybe he doesn’t believe you. You suppose you cannot blame him. It is a forward offer to any man, never mind one who is probably unaccustomed to them. A proposition he can accept or decline of his own free will, pleasure without contracts or compromises. No wonder he looks wary, like you are going to disappear if he steps wrong.

“Well?” you say, because you are not going anywhere. “Are you just going to stand there?”

He answers with a step. He closes the door behind him. Your eyes never leave each other, locked as he swiftly undoes his shirt and peels it off. The undershirt follows, tugged over his head, messing some of his hair. Then your gaze finally drops, an intimate heat rushing inside you as you look down his body. A sheen of sweat covers most of his torso, several prominent scars cutting through an otherwise perfect body. His muscles are even more prominent, strained from fighting.

You are already thinking of all the places you want to put your mouth when he strips off his bottom layers. For a man who was so lost in contemplation, he has no uncertainty now, striding up to where you wait.

You face him fully as he steps into the shower. The glass door closes. It finally fogs with your combined heat.

His presence overwhelms this small space, much like it did that first little civilian car. It feels like he is everywhere. Your eyes move all over his body, your breath coming faster. He pushes a hand through his hair and you look up, breath catching when you meet his eyes.

“No past,” you say, practically gasping. “No future. Just now.”

“Just now,” he says.

You are so close together and so far apart, a breath away but not touching. You are uncharacteristically hesitant.

He is the one who closes the space, holding your chin between his thumb and forefinger. You feel that small touch everywhere, shuddering despite the hot water slipping down your body.

He leans towards you.

Your heart leaps right out of your chest. You turn your face at the last second and try to sound playful when you say, “No kissing remember?”

It was supposed to be a joke but you cling to it. It must be the danger or adrenaline, maybe the heat or his eyes, but kissing feels far too intimate. The rest is just exercise. You tell yourself that.

“You don’t like kissing?” he asks with a raised eyebrow. “What do you like?”

“Bet you can’t guess,” you tease. Banter is better than intimate gazing. You want release, not more tension.

“Hm,” Chan says.

He cups the back of your neck before weaving his hand through your hair, swift, smooth, smiling. He tugs and your head follows, the line of your throat exposed and a mewl of a sound escaping.

“Lucky guess,” you say, clearing your throat after that embarrassing sound.

But then you make another one. Those competent fingers find the curve of your breast and he wastes no time utterly tormenting the sensitive peak. You have always been extra sensitive there, though you seldom take the time to linger, usually rushing to the next best thing. You almost forgot how intense it feels, your whole body puppeted by the bolt of pleasure in his control.

“Lucky guess,” he says, tugging your head back when you start to curl up. “You like that?” he asks. He takes your whimper for a reply, pinching a nipple meanly before sliding his hand down your body. You rear up, eager as his fingers dip between your legs. “And that?”

This time, your body answers for itself when he finds how wet you are. You make an undignified squeak when your back touches the cold wall, the hot water cascading down his back. He lets go of your hair and plants a hand above your head, his whole body crowding yours in a way that feels more protective than suffocating. You would usually be tempted to push him away, but your whole body opens up to him. You touch his chest and rock your hips, riding the deft strokes of his fingers.

“God, you’re so wet,” he murmurs, his face in your neck, his body against yours.

“Yes,” you say. You slide both hands down his chest, savour in his gasp when you find how hard he is. You take him in hand, both of you working the other into a frenzy. “Fuck me,” you say, your voice already a low mess. “Chan, please.”

The effect of his name is immediate. He grabs you by the hips and lifts you like it is easy. He pins you to the wall so there is no space between you anymore.

You string your arms around his neck, stroking your fingers across his back as he angles you.

He is strong and his movements are effortless, but his groaning betrays a deeper desperation.

“Fuck,” he says, his voice breaking in your ear. It makes you clench, getting tight around him as he pushes in. It makes you both gasp, open-mouthed and needy as your bodies come together. “Fuck. Oh, fuck, you feel so good. I’m not—”

He is barely coherent but you are in no position to judge, clinging to him with your eyes closed and mouth hanging open. He bottoms out and immediately starts fucking you with no reprieve.

“I’m not—” he says again. “It’s—it’s been so long—I—”

“It’s fine,” you say, voice straining. You hold the back of his head, your cheek against his, making all sorts of embarrassingly desperate sounds right into his ear. “It’s fine,” you say. “Just come. I have an implant. Want you to come like this.”

A couple days ago, he was chasing you through a building, lifting you off your feet and pinning you down in a very different way. His dark eyes felt inhuman, but now he is groaning and whimpering as he fucks you deep and steady, every snap of his hips as frantic as your racing heart. Your wet bodies are pressed together and he is all hot skin and sturdy muscle, human, real, living and breathing as much as you. They tried to make him into something that did not know how to want anything, but he wants you.

That repeats in your head until you start murmuring it, “Want you, want you, want you.”

He comes with a groan and a deep stroke. He holds you against the wall while the water continues to run down his back.

With a sigh, you descend from the high of pleasure. You breathe hard while he keeps you in place for a minute longer.

“Sorry,” he suddenly says, panting as he surfaces.

You wince with the separation, your knees shaking when he lowers you. You hold his arms, fingers clasped tightly around his veiny forearms as you stare at him. It takes a second for his word to register.

“Sorry?” you say on a breathless laugh. “For what?”

“That was, uh, fast,” he says, giggling that musical laugh, a very embarrassed sound.

You stroke your fingers up his bicep and across his shoulder, watch a shiver wrack his body even though he could not possibly be cold. You meet his eyes. They have not lost any hunger, devouring the sight of you. He wets his lips, drag his teeth across the bottom one, and you start to feel delirious from the heat and sensations.

“Trust me,” you say. “That was hot.”

His smile looks relieved. He bumps his forehead to yours, his hands loose around your hips. You rock towards him, encouraging the slow wander of his touch.

“I get it,” you say, breathy, your knees shaking as he cups a handful of your ass and squeezes, then drags his palm to up the centre of your back. “It, uh,” you stammer, eyes closing. “It’s been a long time for me too. A few months at least.” Your last liaison was well before the debacle with the enemy. It was a forgettable exchange.

You do not think you will forget tonight.

His hands curve around you like he is memorizing the shape of your body, the way your bare skin feels against his. You are close, so it is obvious when he bristles at your words.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing,” he says, far too casually, avoiding your eye as he reaches around you for some body soap from the dispenser. He lathers his hands and touches you again, stroking his palm down your backside and around your waist.

It almost distracts you. Almost. You look at him at with squinting eyes, smiling a small smile.

“What?” you say again. “You sound a bit jealous.”

“I’m not jealous,” he says, too defensively.

“Oh, really?” you say.

He cups some water in his hand and runs it over you. His eyes lift from his task to meet yours.

Maybe teasing was a mistake. A flash of something dangerous sparkles behind his smile.

“Really,” he says. He turns off the water with a flick of his wrist. “I have nothing to be jealous about.”

It should stop surprising you, but you yelp when he sweeps you into his arms. You hook your legs around his waist, your arms his neck, holding tight while he carries you to the bedroom.

You are wet and the air is cold, but then a mattress dips beneath you and a bundle of bedsheets surround you. He lays you out, deliberate and measured, very different from his slow tenderness the other night.

“Quick question,” he says. He runs both hands through his wet hair, pushing it back. You look up at where he stands, your eyes wandering every plane of his body.

“Yes?” you ask.

He grabs your ankles and drags you down the bed, all while dropping to his knees. When your legs are over his shoulders and his breath is soft between your legs, he asks, “Does this count as kissing?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, his mouth interrupting any coherent thought of yours.

A part of you thinks you should conserve your energy, but then his tongue is swirling over you and nothing else matters. Your hands cover your breasts, touching yourself in time with him. You let yourself enjoy your own body and help him find his way back to his.

By the time you get to sleep, you are both thoroughly worn out. Chan falls asleep first for once, all but passing out beside you. You are sharing a bed because the other sheets are wet and used.

You look at him through sleepy eyes. You touch his cheek, amazed when you think of how much things changed in just a few days. If you were told a week ago that the First Guard would be in your bed like this, you would have laughed.

If someone tried to tell you he had dimples and warm eyes, that he would sigh your name like it was the breath that kept him living, you are not sure what you have said.

You drift into sleep. You see his face in your dreams, still peaceful and slumbering beside you until that dream becomes a nightmare. His eyes snap open. In this sleeping world, it is not the warm gaze you have come to know so well. An emotionless weapon stares back at you.

There is no time to fight before his hand is around your throat and all the air leaves your body.

You feel cold, unbelievably cold.

You hear a voice. It says, “Stop. Stop!” You swear it sounds like Chan.

Your vision blurs.

You blink, blink, blink. Your eyes open underwater. When you scream, it is suffused in the rushing cold, air bubbling past your lips and fading into darkness. You thrash to no avail, throwing your head back and closing your eyes.

They open again. There are wooden beams high, high above your head. You still can’t breathe, your chest heaving with desperation, and you can’t feel your body. Why can’t you feel anything?

“Hey, it’s me! I’m coming!” Your blurry gaze darts around for the voice. Grey smoke slithers around the wooden beams. It takes a long time for a face to emerge in the fog.

Changbin leans over you, younger, thinner, a cut on his head bleeding profusely.

“Go,” you say, because he’s hurt and he needs to go now or he will never escape. You want to tell him what’s coming, tell him he needs to run, but he shakes his head before you can.

“I’m not leaving here without you.”

The weight leaves your chest all at once. Air rushes into your lungs and fills you like a cloud. You feel as though you are flying. When you open your eyes, you are sitting on a park bench. You have never seen this park before, blossoming in green and gold with summertime sunshine. The edge of your periphery blurs, obscuring shapes and bodies into glowing phantoms. Only one face is clear.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Changbin shouts. He runs across the field towards you. He is young, barely more than a child, but he curses like an old man when he reaches you.

“Fine, fine!” He throws his hands in the air. “You’re right, you’re faster. But I’m still stronger. Watch this, princess—”

He tackles you. You hear his laughter and your own, a youthful sound, twinkling with childish delight. You roll across the grass in a giggling frenzy.

The greenery darkens as you roll away. The park changes. When you look up, the trees are a mosaic of red and orange. Leaves drift on the autumn breeze.

“Do you ever think about what else you could do with your life?” Changbin asks.

You look at him. He is older, not a teenager but not fully grown. His face is still gawky with youth, his muscles growing in. He is staring up at the sky.

“No,” you hear yourself say.

He laughs but without much humour. His eyes close and he sighs, nodding.

“Ah, yeah,” he says. “I thought you might say that today.”

You turn your face to the trees as a leaf flutters towards you. It touches your forehead and sends a painful jolt rampaging through your body. You blink, blink, blink, up at the doctor and their syringe. They say you did well but you don’t feel well, your insides churning like every organ is folding itself inside out.

The doctor steps aside and you meet eyes with another child across the room. Changbin is holding his arm and rocking back and forth. He is the only one not crying.

You cross the room. It was brimming with screaming children but now it’s empty.

“It’s okay,” you hear your voice. You see your small hand reach out, touching Changbin on the forehead where he contorts with pain in his small cot. “You can cry,” you say. “I won’t tell anyone.”

In another blink, he is older, a teenager again, crying and curled up in his bunk.

“Changbin,” you hear yourself say.

“I’m fine,” he snaps.

“You’re not,” your voice says. “None of us are.” You see your hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re not alone. You’ve never been alone.”

“You’re going to get hurt. And then what?”

“Then I’ll get hurt,” you hear yourself reply, speaking with more certainty than you ever remember feeling. “You’re my friend, Changbin. I don’t mind if something happens to me. I don’t care if it hurts, because I won’t be doing it for Miroh. I’m doing it for you.”

You look down at his hand when he reaches for yours. When you look back up, he is grown, sitting on a windowsill in the moonlight with a small scar on his cheek.

“I didn’t bleed for Miroh,” he says.

You blink. The wooden beams are high above you, his bloodied face full of concern.

“I’m your soldier, not his.”

The weight slams back into your chest. All the air goes out of you. You are falling, endlessly falling, all the way down to where there is nothing but cold. The walls close around you. You feel the stone under your palm. You suck in a breath of cold air only to choke on water. There is a light above your head and voices, screaming. You twist and kick like a wild thing.

You get closer to the surface. You hear Chan say, “Stop, stop—”

Then you wake in your shared bed. His voice echoes in the waking world.

You realize that is because Chan is talking in his sleep. He keeps repeating, “Stop, stop.”

You shake off the last dredges of sleep. It is not easy, your heart still skipping beats from the rapid-fire scenes.

Chan is on his back, his chest rising and falling, fast asleep but clearly in the throes of a nightmare. You are not sure how to help. You chance a tentative touch, saying his name as you brush his shoulder.

He wakes with a start, his eyes flying open. You see the flicker of panic as he forgets where he is, still half-lost in his nightmare.

Chan is much faster than you. It takes only seconds for his instincts to commandeer control, then you are the one on your back and he is leaning over you. Fortunately, he does not swing his arms around like you. His manoeuvre gives him the advantage but he doesn’t hurt you, other than leaving you a little startled and winded.

“Chan,” you say. “It’s me. It’s fine. It was just a dream.”

He blinks away the vestiges of sleep. You see the moment he recognizes you, the tension that immediately leaves his shoulders.

You are surprised yet again when he abruptly drops his weight, practically smothering you as he cages you in his arms. You put your arms around him, patting his back until his breathing slows to a normal cadence.

He eventually rolls back over, but he hooks his arms around your middle and drags you close. A part of you wants to balk, scared this is too intimate, but your own heart settles in the quiet comfort of his embrace. You let yourself rest, falling asleep to the gentle rhythm of his breathing.

There are two nearby research facilities. It is a toss-up between the smaller, closer one or the bigger, farther one. You opt for the closer base, figuring a smaller facility would be easy to incapacitate quickly. You and Chan have knowledge about Miroh’s operation that no one in the world can match. You are the only ones who can do what you are doing, so they never see you coming.

You dismantle the base but Changbin is not there. The only place you see your friend is in your dreams, emerging from smoke and disappearing as fast, leaving you with his promises and your guilt.

It is so strange why your mind keeps summoning that same vision. It smashed through something in your mind, cracked it somehow, and now it can’t relinquish it.

It is strange what a stressed mind can conjure and invent. Even stranger is its inability to let go. These days, all your thoughts and feelings slip through your mind like water in a sieve, everything flowing too fast to catch despite the desperate cup of your hands. But that image and his voice returns again and again and again.

The only satisfaction you get is watching pieces of Miroh’s operation crumble. You watch the news, keep up with the business reports, and watch as a domino effect transpires thanks to your actions.

It does mean security is going to tighten at the remain bases, but you are ready.

You move on to the next facility, even more determined. For a moment, this seems like the place. You find other enemies and subject imprisoned in the lower level cells, but Changbin is not one of them.

Chan escorts the innocent captives out while you search the remainder of the facility. It is empty, an echoing steel chamber and little more. You want to shout his name but you already know the only answer will be the reverberation of your own voice.

You search every crevice, just in case.

Your attention is rapt until you run past a certain door. At first, you merely glance inside. When you see it is empty, you turn to continue.

It’s like a tether wraps around your mind. You slam to a halt, the squeak of your boots echoing in the corridor.

You turn back around. You step into the chamber.

Every hair on the back of your neck stands up. You swear, the temperature drops by a few degrees as you step further inside. If you didn’t know any better, you would almost believe it was haunted, not like in stories of decrepit mansions, but filled with empty figments still crying out in pain. The room is rife with an unsettling chill, dank as a tomb.

You walk slowly. You feel like the echo is louder here despite your careful steps. You look around. There is lots of wiring, lots of sockets. There are dusty shapes on the floor where things used to stand, types of furniture maybe, or machines.

There is a dip in the corner, what looks like a well. You approach it cautiously, craning your neck to peer down without getting too close. It is dry as bone but deep. You can’t see the bottom. Heights don’t usually bother you, but you feel suffocated with a cloying fear. Your feet tingle as you imagine falling. You know it must have a bottom but somehow you feel like it would never end.

You realize footsteps are approaching, fast down the corridor then slow as they enter the room. You put a hand on the gun at your hip, turning quickly.

It’s just Chan. You are about to speak, or at least try looking for works, but you are stricken by the look on his face. Even though he was fiery when you last saw him, he looks very gaunt, flushed pale as he looks around the room. He is not merely unsettled like you. He looks sick.

You immediately know where you are. This was the room they used to torture him.

“You know this place,” you say, not a question. You remember all those torture descriptions. They have haunted your nightmares, all those images so vivid that you imagined them happening to yourself. If it was horrifying just reading it, you can only imagine how he feels right now.

He nods. It takes a few tries to clear his throat. “Yes,” he says weakly. He looks between you and the well as if he half-expects it to grow teeth and attack you.

He shakes his head. He crosses the room in a sharp stride, so swift that it takes you back. He grabs your arm and yanks you towards him.

“Get away from there,” he says, his voice hard. “There’s nothing in here. We need to go. Now.”

You have no argument but he waits for no reply, practically dragging you out of the room. He leads you back into the corridor, taking huge strides. His grip tightens.

“Another second and that will hurt,” you say, more calm than you feel. His energy is so panicked that it bleeds into you.

He drops your arm quickly, snapping to realization. He flexes his gloved hand.

“Sorry,” he says. He turns on his heel with a swivel so fast that you collide. He catches your shoulders and holds them, looking at you without really seeing you, his stare so intense it bores right through you. “Sorry,” he says again. His voice is shaking when he says, “Fuck. I’m sorry. I just—”

“It’s fine,” you say, understanding how overwhelming that must have been. There are tears in his eyes but he rips away before you can look too closely.

“It’s fine,” he says, his voice hard again. “There’s no one else here. It’s time to go. This place…” He spares one last glance over your shoulder. “This place is over. It’s time to go.”

You leave together.

You take a day for recuperation while you plan you next move. Neither of you slept very well last night, but at least there were no nightmares. You take turns driving, occasionally sleeping in the passenger seat.

You reach the next motel at sunset. The room only has one bed which draws Chan to a halt. He blinks at it like he doesn’t understand, then his ears get red, then he looks at you.

A laugh bursts out of you. You try to contain it but it’s hopeless. Chan smiles then laughs too, shaking his head and rubbing his neck.

“Sorry,” you say. “Just – you don’t think it’s a little late to be blushing like that? Mister Does This Count As Kissing?”

“Wow,” Chan says, playfully throwing his hands up in surrender. “Sorry for being a gentleman.”

“You’re forgiven,” you say, making him smile.

You eat dinner on the bed then place all the containers to the side. Chan watches the news while you scribble memos in your notebook. You are trying to connect dots and figure out which facility is most likely. You go back to your original notes, obtained from the first research facility, to see if you missed anything.

You fall asleep while working. The week’s travails evidently catch up to you.

You stir when Chan tries to move you. You are awkwardly slumped over your notes. You watch as he carefully places them aside and tries to lay you down properly.

The sun has long since set by now. The room is lit by the glow of the television and the warm neon light from the motel sign, such a vibrant yellow it pours through the curtains.

You look up at Chan, squinting because of the slash of light in your eyes. He tilts his head to shield you.

“Better?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

He doesn’t move. Neither do you. You are on your back and he is on his side, propped up on his arm and looking down at you. You offer a little smile which draws his eyes to your mouth.

Your breath catches and, just like that, something ignites inside you. You see it reflected back at you, all his thoughts in the depth of his gaze.

You are not sure who moves first. It might happen simultaneously. It only takes a second before your fingers are in his hair and his hands are on your waist. He climbs over you, his mouth brushing your jaw and your throat without ever landing a kiss. You shiver as his breath caresses your skin.

You had no idea so many small places were so sensitive. Even the back of your calf tingles when his leg brushes yours.

You move in tandem, with the same synchronisation as when you fought together. Your bodies are a good fit, shaped by similar lives, bearing similar scars. You tug the flannel down his shoulders and sit to remove your own shirt. When you are completely bare up top, he lays you down. Your hips lift towards him, needing him, legs parting as he presses his weight just so. He guides your leg over his hip and fits himself against the softest parts of you.

He presses a hand into the mattress, right by your head. You tip your head back and grind up against him.

“Chan,” you say.

His mouth hovers above your breasts and you grab his head and pull him close. He takes the offer and parts his lips around the hardening sensitive peak, twisting his tongue around it until you are writhing under him.

“Oh god,” you say, tugging desperately at his t-shirt. You normally don’t care about fully undressing, but you need to feel him. You want his heart beating against yours, his skin hot against your own. “Please,” you say, not even embarrassed when it turns to a whimper.

He makes a small noise, acknowledging you, but continues to lave kisses and bites across your breasts, teasing until they are almost sore with pleasure. Only when you are a mindless puddle of desire does he sit up and whip his shirt off. It flies across the room, forgotten. You both unbutton your jeans and shuffle them down. The few seconds you are apart are agony.

When he lays back on top of you, it is with no barriers. He holds your hand and laces your fingers with his, pressing it into the mattress as he spreads your legs with his own.

“You feel so—” he says, sentiment ending in a sigh. No other word suffices.

Your whole body feels alight. His thumb find the centre of your pleasure, rubbing at you while he sinks inside you. He is somehow both gentle and powerful, holding you at the best angle as he takes you. You are used to fast and dirty and this slow tenderness aches with a burn so good, you never want it to end.

“Chan,” you say his name on a breath. He releases your hand so you can put your arms around his shoulders, holding him as he rocks into you with rolling, deep strokes.

His face is so close. Your mouth is aching with the rest of you. His lips felt so good everywhere else. The delirium of desire takes over and you decide, fuck it. You have done this much, changed this much; you can be brave and accept more intimacy. It’s just a kiss. There’s nothing life-changing about a kiss.

You lean up to kiss him but you are too fast, too frantic with nerves. It lands awkwardly on the corner of his mouth. Then you feel embarrassed. You shake your head.

“Sorry,” you say. “Sorry, I was just—”

Chan is frozen on top of you. He stares while you stammer an apology.

Then his nose brushes yours. You feel his breath against your lips. You stop talking. Your heart thunders.

“I told you,” he whispers, “stop apologizing.”

Then his lips are on yours. Your eyes close as you follow the give-and-take of his kiss. Your lips part and his tongue touches your top lip, then he sucks your bottom lip and moans against your open mouth. You clench around him, moaning back. His hips move again and you cling to him. The kisses start small and grow to desperate, open-mouthed passion. Coupled with his deep strokes, getting faster and faster, you feel like you are flying.

Oh, is all you think, this is what this is supposed to feel like.

You come first, the orgasm taking you by surprise. It was steadily building at a small pace before all at once striking. You cry out, burying your fingers in his hair as you rock against him. He finishes only seconds later, groaning your name in the curve of your neck then sucking a bruising kiss right there.

You hold him after, your fingers stroking down the nape of his neck, your legs wrapped around him. It feels like years before your heart comes back to a normal pace. Your breathing still comes shaky, but so does his. His strong arms seem suddenly weak as he pushes himself up with a quiver.

You separate. You try to find the words but you mind still feels like water.

You are so floaty, it takes a second to realize something is wrong. Chan is crying, or about to, sniffling hard and scrunching his face to stop it.

“Chan—”

Alarmed, you reach for him, but he moves before your hand makes contact. He gets up and wordlessly puts on his jeans and a flannel, buttoning it askew. You grab your shirt as well, tugging it on frantically to keep up.

“Chan,” you say again. “What’s wrong? Did I—”

“It wasn’t you,” he says, but he won’t look at you. He sits on a chair and starts putting on his boots. That’s when you really panic, jumping out of bed and looking for your own pants. “Stay,” he says. “It’s fine. It’s not you. It’s me.”

“It’s not you, it’s me?” you ask. “Seriously?”

“It’s my fault,” he says. “You said right now and that you were fine without the past or the future and I thought – I thought I could – but –”

He grabs his baseball cap and tugs it on. You say his name again, reaching for his sleeve as he walks past, but he does not break stride for a second.

You can’t exactly chase after him half-naked. You know he will be long gone by the time you get dressed. You can only stand there in shock and confusion as the door closes and he disappears.

You sniffle. You shake your head, refusing to cry, not after everything.

Your body does not listen to your head, unsurprisingly, and you end up sputtering through messy tears while putting on some clothes. You wipe your eyes, fighting an upward battle against your hormones as all those happy, pleasurable feelings melt into something ugly.

Chan returns almost an hour later. By that point, you have passed through several different emotions. You were worried, of course, then you were sad. Now you are irate. You were left to stew in anxiety, sitting on edge. For a while you wondered if he was coming back at all, which set off more tears.

You are certain your face is puffy and your eyes are red. Chan looks at you with a guilty expression but says nothing.

“Well?” you say, but he just stares at you. You are sitting on the edge of the bed while he stands a few feet away. “Great,” you say, smacking the bedcovers. “Fucking fantastic. We’re back to the silence, I guess?”

“I know,” he says. “Sorry.”

You wait for more but that non-committal reply is all you get.

“You told me that you trusted me,” you say, mortified when your voice breaks. “You said that one day it would be my turn to help you, but every time you start to feel something you hide it or turn away or say you’re fine or run out the fucking door with no explanation!” You stand up to put more space between you, marching to other side of the room. You wipe your eyes. “You know, I feel like I don’t even know who I’m talking to half the time.”

“I’m always me,” he says.

“And who is that?” you ask. “From the start, you’ve basically asked me to blindly trust you. One second you’re this terrifying agent who does everything my father asks, and the next you’re just standing there letting me kill him. I haven’t demanded explanations. You said it was just your mission and I accepted that, even though I knew it was bullshit. I know this is about more than jobs or missions and I – I – I’m sorry everything’s all fucked up. But we’re all we have right now.” Your voice breaks again and you choke back a sob. “You can’t ask me to trust you then push me away. You can’t say you trust me but never let me in. I’m terrified out here. We’re doing something insane and I can’t have the person I’m relying on the most shove me away. I want to be on your side. Chan, I want – I want so badly –”

He takes a breath but stays silent. His gaze is heavy.

“Please, don’t look at me like that,” you say. “I know you’re not what Miroh tried to make you. I know what they did to you. I know it was terrible. But I’m not afraid of you and I’m not judging you. I want to know you. I need to know you. I know you can remember some things. I know it’s causing you pain. If I could understand—”

“I remember everything,” he says.

You are not expecting an interjection. It takes a second to comprehend.

“What?” you say.

“I said I remember everything,” he says. He looks at you as he slowly approaches. “There isn’t a single moment of my life that I’ve forgotten for even a second.”

He stops a foot from you. This close, you can see he has been crying too. Even through your frustration, you want to touch him. You are so bad at comfort, receiving and giving, but your fingers itch to smooth his brow and cup his jaw.

You curl your fingers at your side.

“Everyday,” he says. “Every single day I think of my mistakes and what it cost. I haven’t forgotten anything.”

“What do you mean?” Your adrenaline is starting to spike. “There was a reconfiguration program. I know about it. That’s how it happened.” You know about the torture. You can see the light at the top of the well and feel the cold in the bottom of the Cell. You know about it. You can picture it. You saw that place yesterday.

You know. You know. You know.

Your chest starts to tighten with panic.

“You did all of Miroh’s work willingly,” you continue.

“Yes, I did,” he says. “But it wasn’t willingly.”

“Because they tortured you.”

“In a way.” He sucks back a breath. “I thought I was smart. I thought I could beat Miroh. I almost did, but then everything—”

A memory from a dream: a flash of grey smoke.

“It went wrong,” he says with a resigned sigh. “I was punished. That’s true. But I didn’t care what they did to me and Miroh knew that. So he took someone else. Someone I cared about. And when it was all done, I was given a choice.” His voice breaks on the word choice, the whole phrase utterly dryly. “And it wasn’t really a choice,” he says. “I could walk away. He wasn’t even going to try and stop me. But Miroh wanted a soldier. He said all the blood on his hands was going somewhere one way or another – and he said it could be on mine or hers.”

You are not sure if you are breathing anymore.

“The things they did to her – the things they made me watch.” He presses a hand to his forehead as he takes another breath. “She was a good fighter, but she wasn’t a killer. It never mattered what they did to her, she always knew who she was. She knew whose side she was on. She wanted to help people, not hurt them. I couldn’t let her become that thing. If she ever – if she ever came back to me—” He swallows. “I couldn’t let it be her. I couldn’t let her have all that blood on her conscious. I’d already failed her. Again and again, I let her down. I couldn’t do it again. I told Miroh I’d take her place willingly. I’d do anything he asked so she wouldn’t have to get her hands dirty. She could come back one day and… and…”

“What are you talking about,” you say. You fumble towards the bed and drop down heavily.

Chan looks at you. That silent conversation.

You already know what he is going to say.

“Miroh only put one soldier through a reconfiguration program,” he says. “And it wasn’t me. It was you.”

#bang chan x reader #bang chan smut #chan x reader #bang chan x you #chan x you #bang chan fanfiction #stray kids fanfiction #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #skz x you #stray kids x you

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moog-rt · 9 months ago

Text

GO TO HELL [ch. 1]

[Lucifer Morningstar x Fem!Reader]

Previous: Prologue

➨ Chapter One

Next: Chapter Two

Premise:

You love your friends. You really do. But sometimes it needs reminding when one of them accidentally sends you to Hell.

Despite falling into the hands of Hell’s loveliest princess, finding a way back to the world of the living proves difficult as you tiptoe around its king.

Warning(s): blood, gore, cannon-typical violence

If you'd prefer to read on Ao3, here is the link:

Otherwise, enjoy!

♡ ♡ ♡

CHAPTER ONE

Your head throbbed, and cradling it with your hand only turned it into a piercing pain rather than dulling it.

You were careful as you worked to stand up. It was hard to grab hold of anything sturdy enough to support your weight, and upon closer inspection, it turned out you were taking a power nap in a pile of garbage. And, boy, was that shit rank.

You stumbled your way onto solid ground whilst picking gunk-covered plastic from your shirt and hair.

The surroundings that greeted you were unlike anything you could imagine. The sky appeared polluted with red smog so thick you couldn’t see the sun, though it didn’t smell like the kind of pollution you were used to. Rather than chemical, it stank of smoke and decay.

Every breath you took of this new atmosphere felt thick and raspy. You weren’t sure you could really even consider it breathable. You were probably inhaling a handful of carcinogens by the second.

From what you could see through the gap of the two buildings that made up the alley you were in, there was a city. It was as if the materials of the buildings were selected to complement the sky. Everything was a different shade of red or burgundy. The plumes of smoke that tunneled up in the distance were mildly concerning, though they didn’t seem to be an immediate threat.

It was all enough to drive a clear sense of dread through your gut. No way in Hell were you supposed to be here. You should be on your way to Devon’s place- No, you were at Devon’s place, in their living room.

And now you were…well, you didn’t really know. That was kind of the problem.

The panic only truly set in after you tripped, scraping your knees on the filthy cement. You didn’t want to know what caused that dark brown, slightly chunky stain. Turning to face the lump that caused your stumble, your stomach plummeted. Face paled.

That was a corpse. A whole not-so-human corpse. Mangled and lying motionless in a pool of blood that was beginning to dry.

In an instant, you threw yourself off of the ground, backpedaling away from the body. What on Earth could have caused their limbs to bend in so many directions? On second thought, you hoped it would stay a mystery.

You couldn’t ruminate on it for long before you felt something large grab your shoulder, hoisting you around so your back was facing the alley. You winced as the grip grew tighter and looked up to see a green-skinned man with jagged teeth protruding from his mouth.

In that instant, it felt as if your heart had been launched a thousand feet in the air.

His pitch-black eyes narrowed as he leaned closer to your face, and you couldn’t bring yourself to move or utter a single word. His grip moved to your neck, turning your head around so he could see you from every angle. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any more uncomfortable, he brought his nose to your cheek and inhaled deeply.

“A human,” he said in a grumbly voice. You could see a corner of his lips curl into a wicked smile. “That’s a first. It’d be a shame to let you go to waste.”

Go. You had to go.

To have a freeze-response in a situation like this was a death sentence. You hadn’t the slightest clue what this man’s–this thing’s–intentions were with you, but you had an inkling that it wouldn’t be pleasant.

You had to move. Even if it was just an inch, just enough to convince yourself that you still could. You would take either fight or flight over this.

“Is that soul still living?”

Your eyes flicked over to the source of the new voice. A tall, reptilian-looking creature with eyes that seemed to be bugging out of its head. They were no more comforting than the man who was only a few inches away from strangling you.

“Fuck off! I found ‘er. She’s mine!” Apparently, the lizard-man was enough to draw your assailant’s attention away from you.

Lizard-man did not in fact fuck off. That response was the confirmation that only further drew him in. Looking around, you noticed other inhuman creatures turning their attention toward the three of you.

The lizard-man made a sudden lunge for you, digging claws into the green man’s arms. He hollered out in pain with an endless string of curses.

In that moment, you felt his grip on you loosen, and you dropped to the ground like dead weight. This was your chance. Likely your only chance before both of them pounced on you at once. Maybe more by the looks of the other creatures closing in, as well.

Relief washed over you as you slowly moved your arm to push you up. The mental confines over your body had been released, and just in time. You were able to clumsily roll out of the way as the men threw each other to the ground, and with wobbly legs, you promptly hauled ass out of there.

You could hear screams of rage and surprise as you shoved through the people on the street, apologizing occasionally. You could feel dozens of pairs of eyes burning into the back of your head, and you were almost certain that some had given chase.

The odd buildings blurred past you. You may have caught a glimpse of a shop with televisions on display and another that looked as though human limbs were hanging on meat hooks, but this was no time for window shopping. All of it caused your head to spin from both physical and emotional whiplash.

The first corner you turned revealed a massive light-up sign that towered above everything else with text saying, “Welcome to Hell.”

What kind of twisted joke was this?

You ducked into another alleyway. Nobody was around, but you could still hear yelling close behind you. Your heart felt as though it stopped for a second as you took notice of a massive barricade blocking off the only exit. The first sliver of your luck finally showed itself to you in the form of a small gap that could be just big enough for you to fit.

You were forced to slow down in order to wiggle your way through it, allowing your pursuers to catch up. Just when you thought you had cleared the blockade, that big green hand wrapped around your ankle, yanking you back.

You cried out and pulled as much as you could until your foot slid out of your sock, successfully freeing you. Padding barefoot through this wretched city wouldn’t be pleasant, but you were sure it was better than whatever those things had planned for you.

As you pushed back into a sprint, you heard the green man’s voice screaming at the others about how he wouldn’t let them through before him. That was fine by you. He was much too big to fit through that hole, and you doubted he could scale the wall completely. If he was dead set on not letting anyone pass before him, then you probably had all the time in the world. Even so, you wouldn’t feel safe until you could get as far as your legs could carry you.

So, ignoring your burning lungs and pounding heart, you pushed forward. Through the streets that grew more and more disheveled, collapsed buildings, cracked and upheaved asphalt roads. The lack of shoes only made it that much worse as your feet were getting sore. You were slowing down, but you refused to stop until you found someplace suitable to take refuge.

After the last main row of the city, there was a hill. And on top of that hill, there was a hotel.

Or so the sign on it said. Happy Hotel.

You could tell it was probably supposed to light up, but it wasn’t on, either because it was daytime (you assumed) or the bulbs were burnt out. Both seemed equally likely. The place was massive but appeared to be a hodgepodge of things all shoved into one, a cruise ship crashed into one side, a train on top of the roof… But despite its general run-down appearance, the stained glass windows remained untouched as if they were brand new.

It would be a gamble on whether this place was inhabited or not, but at least it was out of that shit show of a city. Probably the safest thing you’d come across thus far.

Besides, it was a hotel. Maybe you still had one of your cards in your pocket. If not, there was always Apple Pay, right?

The final push up the hill really did you in, leaving you panting and covered in sweat at the front door. You were dying to sit down and rest, but you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so until you were inside.

Seeing the building up close left you even more confused about whether or not the place was still running. The majority of the double front doors were stained glass with an apple shape in the center of each. It was quite beautiful. But at the same time, the edges of the frame appeared chipped and rotted, showing the building’s true age.

You were just thankful when the door creaked open without a fight. You didn’t want to resort to breaking in through one of those wonderful windows. With how loud it would be, you might as well scream out your arrival.

Aside from some of the detailed woodwork and repetitive apple iconography, the inside of the hotel was a bit sad to put it frankly. Little to no furniture. Cobwebs coating everything. The chandelier holding on by a thread (maybe the cobwebs were preventing it from falling). There was a minifridge, though!

You couldn’t imagine you would be lucky enough to find a cold bottle of water in there, but you decided to check to be sure. The cool air alone, wafting out as you opened its door, alleviated some of your discomfort. Unfortunately, there was no water or any beverage, for that matter. Inside were a couple of applesauce(?) cups and a styrofoam take-out container.

The fact that there was anything at all was concerning as it was a bit of confirmation there were already inhabitants. You would need to keep looking for a safe place to stay unless they ended up being the odd few in this town that weren’t out for blood.

On cue, cool metal prodded the back of your neck as you were closing the fridge, and you froze.

“What are you doing here?” asked the person behind you. Their voice was cold and harsh, and it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. So much for going unscathed.

“I was just looking for somewhere to rest. I’m sorry for intruding,” you said just above a whisper, raising your hands instinctively.

“You want to stay here?” a chipper voice cut through the air, echoing a bit in the large, empty foyer. They sounded almost happy you were trespassing. “Vaggie, this could be our first guest!”

“Babe, the hotel isn’t even open yet,” the first voice sighed before the metal was pulled away from your skin. You took that as an invitation to turn around.

Before you stood two young women–you’d guess late teens or early twenties. They were the most human-like people you had the pleasure of coming across since waking up in a hot pile of garbage. The only thing that threw you off was their grey and porcelain white skin tones. It was as if they were pulled out of a black-and-white movie from the ‘50s.

You’d take what you could get at this point. At least they didn’t have scales.

“We’ll just have to move up our grand opening then,” the taller girl sang with a wide, sharp-toothed grin. She bounded over to you, squatting down to meet you at eye level. “Would you be interested in a shot at redemption? It doesn’t matter what you’ve stolen or who you’ve murdered. Everyone deserves a second chance!”

Was this chick for real? What did redemption have to do with a hotel? And why would you need to be redeemed?

Your mouth hung open as your eyes bobbed between the two strangers.

“Wait a second…” The shorter girl–who you realized was the one holding a fucking spear to your neck–suddenly went wide-eyed. “You’re a human. Jesus, she’s a human!”

The blonde stared at her for a moment before turning back to you with knit eyebrows.

“Really? How do you know?” she asked with a tilt of her head as her eyes darted all over you, looking for some tell-tale sign of your humanity.

In what world is it surprising to see a human? You hadn’t been shipped to Mars. That you were certain of.

Then you came to your own realization.

Devon must have drugged you! That was the only way this could make any sense. Was it acid? LSD? You’d have to ask them after you sobered up. Or maybe after you wring their scrawny little neck, because the therapy you’d need after this was sure to cost a fortune.

The hand that landed on your shoulder caused you to flinch. The shorter girl–Vaggie–was kneeling in front of you now. Her touch was delicate as if she was worried she’d break you if she put enough pressure. A stark contrast to the way she treated you a minute ago.

“How did you get here?” she asked in a much softer tone than earlier.

You let out a huff of air, a sorry excuse for a laugh. You smiled, shaking your head as your body slumped back against the fridge.

“I don’t even know where here is,” you laughed. “I was in my friend’s apartment one second and being hunted down by a mob of demons the next.”

The two exchanged a look before helping you to your feet. They settled you down on a couch, one of the few pieces of furniture they had, and got you a glass of water to sip on. The scrapes and cuts you had gotten during your chase, or possibly before it, were treated to, as well. The foot that lost its sock was particularly nasty.

They introduced themselves and explained that you were in Hell. You reckon you should have figured that one out from the big-ass sign you saw while running for your life.

In return, you told them the last few things you could remember before ending up here. Helping your friend with a demon-summoning ritual and getting dragged through a glowing hole in the ground as a result.

“Sounds like that backfired a bit,” Vaggie said. You couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Yeah, a bit. That’s what I get for doing my friend a solid, I guess,” you shrugged, leaning back as you gulped down more of the water.

“Oh, don’t say that. At the end of the day, you helped a friend, and you found us! And we’ll definitely make sure you get home safe and sound,” Charlie grinned as she gently placed a hand on your knee.

You gave a small smile in return. You’re not sure how much you believed in her words, but it was sweet of her to try to reassure you. Her hope was almost infectious, and you could use as much of that as you could get.

“Also, you’re totally welcome to stay here for as long as you need! We’ve got plenty of rooms, and I’m sure we’ll start getting more furniture soon, and if there’s any food you’d like us to get, we can–”

“Baby, slow down,” Vaggie chuckled.

“Sorry…I guess I’m just really excited. You would be our first guest, and I’ve also never seen a human other than my mom before, and even she’s a special case…” Charlie said, looking off to the side as she brushed a blonde strand of hair behind her ear.

“The only humans we technically have are the ones that die and are deemed sinners,” Vaggie explained. “But they take on a new appearance. Usually, it reflects something within their soul.”

Huh.

“That’s…interesting,” you said, eyebrows tightly furrowed together. What does being a lizard man say about that dude’s soul? And what about being green? Maybe it was his favorite color? Or maybe he was green with envy. Haha.

“So what do you say?”

You looked at Charlie to see her holding her hand out to you. If the two of you were making a deal, she wasn’t really getting anything out of it. It was pure charity work…

“Please, let me know if there’s anything I can do for you in return,” you said, taking her hand.

With that, the two young women gave you a brief tour of the hotel. It was still a work in progress, but you could see Charlie’s vision. If they just cleaned it up a bit and filled in the space, it would look livable. You would be more than happy to help with that if you ended up spending enough time there, though you hoped it wouldn’t take that long.

If you weren’t back soon, your place would start getting cobwebs. You also couldn’t miss too many days of work…PTO wasn’t infinite, and you had bills to pay. Your coworkers would also have it out for you if you left them short-staffed.

What if they started putting up missing flyers? Hopefully, they wouldn’t blame the coworker you convinced to go home early. She was the last person you were spotted with in public, after all. No one knew you were going to Devon’s, so it was unlikely they’d take the blame.

Maybe the guy you had been in a situationship with for the last several months would be their suspect. Most of your friends knew all about him (primarily because you’d bitch and whine so much), and it’s not uncommon for people to point fingers at the ‘partner.’

He raised a few red flags here and there, sure, but what man hasn’t? None of them were even close to kidnap-murder level. Mostly just picking his toes in public and swearing on his life that his exes were the crazy ones, not him. Nothing necessarily surprising.

You needed to stop worrying and start embodying Charlie’s confidence in the situation. You would find a way to get back. You would not be stuck in Hell long enough to raise alarm. You just had to manifest it!

Eventually, your hosts showed you to the room you could stay in. It was one of the few furnished ones besides their room at the moment. They also gave you a change of clothes after realizing just how dirty (and smelly) yours were after waking up in a trash heap. Plus, you had two socks again!

You met back up with them in the foyer when you were finished. They wanted to discuss possible ways you could get out of Hell, which you had absolutely no problem with. The two of them brainstormed for a bit while you just sat back and listened in. Vaggie brought up that some upper-class ‘hellborns’ had ways in and out of Hell, but she didn’t have any specifics.

You felt bad not contributing, but what did you know about traveling between the living world and Hell? Jack, that’s what.

“Do you think your dad would know? He’s probably had to get to Earth for some reason or another, yeah?” Vaggie asked, but she was met with a grumble of a response.

“I don’t know…” Charlie said with a frown, all her hopeful energy zapped away in an instant. “He’s never been super helpful with stuff like this.”

“Come on, babe. If anybody would know, it would be him,” Vaggie pressed. “He’s gotta have something we could use.”

Charlie simply groaned as she threw her upper body over the arm of the sofa and sat like that for a minute or two. It was possible that she wasn’t on very good terms with her father. Or he was just exasperating to deal with.

You sent a worried look at Vaggie, because what were you supposed to do in this situation?

“Okay, yeah. We can swing by my old house tomorrow and poke around,” Charlie said as she stood up.

“Great, but you,” Vaggie jabbed her finger in your direction. “Get ready to wake up bright and early. We’ll have to make you presentable first.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Next Chapter

#Lucifer Magne #Lucifer Morningstar #Lucifer Magne x Reader #Lucifer Morningstar x Reader #female reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel fanfiction #Charlie Magne #Charlie Morningstar #Demon Summoning #Occult #once again i am so sorry there is no lucifer this chapter either #i swear he will be in the next one #pinky promise

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gallavichthings · 4 months ago

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A.U.gust 2024

It's almost August again, so time for us to explore alternative universes and see all the other ways in which our boys could fall in love. 😊

For this year, each week will have a general theme, and anything that falls under that theme is allowed, as long as it's original. WIPs, updates or re-imaginings of your own previous works are also allowed (to use someone else's work as inspiration, please ask for their consent before starting).

As always, no sign-ups are needed for this event. Just make sure to mention me using @gallavichthings on the body of your post (you can hide it under a read-more or by using a reblog if you wish to). Posting here on Tumblr is mandatory, but you can host your work somewhere else and post only a link if you want to. There will, of course, be a collection on AO3 (to be announced later).

Some posting suggestions (nothing is mandatory, but it would be courteous):

Tags are to your own discretion, but I suggest tagging NSFW works or hiding them under read-mores (in case of visual posts - fics are normally not an issue).

If you post a long fic on Tumblr in its entirety, it's best to use a read-more in order not to make your post too long and take up a lot of space on people's dashboards and on the tags.

For posting multiple unrelated works on AO3, posting separate works and making them part of one series is better than making each work a chapter of one single fic. That way, you can tag it appropriately and people can more easily find the fic they actually want to read. (That doesn't apply, of course, if your fics are actually connected.)

And without further ado, the themes for each week (please note that a few examples were provided for each week, but they're just a small fraction of what can be done):

Week 1 (01/08-07/08): Seasons/ Holidays (Christmas AUs, summer vacations AUs, New Year's AUs, Halloweeen AUs...)

Week 2 (08/08-14/08): Past/Future (Pirate AUs, Cyberpunk AUs, 1950s AUs, Star Trek AUs...)

Week 3 (15/08-21/08): School/Work (High School AUs, College AUs, Office AUs, Coffee Shop AUs, Tattoo Shop AUs...)

Week 4 (22/08-28/08): Supernatural (Vampire AUs, A/B/O, Soulmate AUs, Superhero AUs...)

Week 5 (29/08-31/08): Free - since this is only half a week, these last three days will be for anything that does not fit any of the other weeks.

If you aren't able to finish your work in time to post it in the designated week, please wait to post it in the last three days. If your AU falls under more than one category, you may post in any week you prefer, according to what you judge to be the most relevant to your work.

I hope that is clear enough, but if not, send me a message and I'll be happy to explain anything further.

And if anyone is in search of some AU ideas, this post contains several AU prompts.

See you in a few weeks!

#Gallavich #Shameless #Shameless US #Ian x Mickey #Ian Gallagher #Mickey Milkovich #Gallavich events #events #A.U.gust 2024 #mod post

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lunarw0rks · 5 months ago

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sweet thing | part two

˖⁺‧₊˚ read it on ao3 | masterlist | last chapter | next chapter

price takes a liking to his neighbor. vulnerable, expecting, and in need of his helping hand. it's a good thing he always wanted a family.

john price x pregnant!reader

warning(s): MDNI (18+); NOT EDITED, pregnancy, hurt/comfort, small illusion to nausea/vomiting, fem!reader [wc: 2.6k]

You'd never admit to how long you stared at the wrinkled paper after John's footsteps dissipated.

And now, the digits taunted you, even when they were far out of sight.

Going about your day seemed harder than before when you had nothing and no one to lean on. Now, the mere temptation of having someone to bother was enough to gnaw at you. The handsome guy next door was just being... nice, right? Most, if not the majority, of people would go out of their way to help out a pregnant woman.

Nothing about yesterday makes you remarkable. Still, you felt otherwise.

Everything about John exuded discipline; someone dependable and safe.

A well-kept house on the outside—and inside, which you gathered from a few lucky glimpses. It's not often that you see him in the light of day, until recently. He was always gone, weeks on end, and then suddenly, he was always there. If you had the time, you might pity him for having nothing better to do than people-watch and smoke cigars out the screen door. If the circumstances differed, you might have been friends by now. You've just been preoccupied as of late, cherishing the days that you can tolerate and doing your best to forget the ones you can't.

Today is an intolerable, unforgettable one.

Another bill shoved through the mail slot that you can't pay, only to be added to the heaping pile. You're behind on laundry, and your bedroom desperately needs a reset. To top it off, the recurring aches and pains have gotten worse, proving that your body is working overtime to support its newest addition. As the months progress, it's only going to get worse. What will you do when you're fully out of commission?

Being idle is the most petrifying part of this whole ordeal. Not the idea of raising a little one on your own, but the stepping-stones along the way to get there.

It takes unlikely amounts of strength to go through pregnancy alone and you're beginning to wonder if you have enough left.

All you can rely on to tie you over is one, very predictable, pleasure.

Cravings. Sweet, savory, hot, cold, edible—even inedible. All that matters is satiating them. They may very well reserve a spot for you in the drugstore checkout since you're a recurring resident, bearing a teeming basket and stomach.

Though driven by a deep hunger for something tasty, you rush through making dinner. Dumping ingredients into saucepans rather than measuring them. Chopping with fervor, sure to make a house guest unsettled if they were looking over your shoulder.

The last step is—begrudgingly—waiting for the sauce to simmer.

It takes one glance at the couch before you plop down and elevate your swelled feet, allowing them the rest they desperately need. Flickers of the day weigh on you again. Rising before the sun, hours of tedious work, a bland, hasty lunch, and the residual exhaustion from the previous months weighing heavy.

Even less time, a blink, before you slip into unconsciousness.

The sight of your living room is back in an instant. Slightly blurry as you blink away the sleep you didn't finish. Somehow, you find the strength to scramble to the stove when the stench of char hits your nostrils. You pinch the knob, killing the heat before you dip the spoon in again like a few stirs would fix your craving. The once smooth and buttery cream had curdled, edges singed and sticking to the cheap cookware. Not salvageable in the slightest.

Even considering how hungry you are; no, especially considering how hungry you are. You can't afford to be picky, yet you resentfully scrape the remnants of sauce into the trash.

It takes everything in you to not tear the kitchen apart then and there. It fleets quickly when the exhaustion hits you again, just as abruptly as the tears. Head in hands, your eyes gloss, and your cheeks do, too. The blubbering lasts only a few minutes but feels like hours. By the end of it, your lips are chapped and quivering. It's just dinner; you can make something else. But the self-reassurance does little.

You catch a glimpse through the window when you go to the sink to pat some water on your face. Golden light looms through the cracks of blinds, spliced by flickers of a television.

No. You can't possibly bother him.

He gave you his number, though, all old-fashioned like on a slip of paper. Gave you permission to call. And... he's right next door. What can a little favor hurt?

Before you know it, your knuckles peck against the wood.

He's perplexed, to say the least.

It's late, pitch black—except for the porch and garden lights illuminating the path—and you're disheveled. Though it's obvious you made a conscious effort to fix yourself up a bit, your features are still puffy and moistened. The sunken crescents below your eyes have deepened. Your fingers twitch in nervousness or... sorrow, perhaps. There's not much you can hide from a man such as himself.

"Everything alright, love?" His brow peaks with concern, naturally.

It takes you a moment to process, partially because of the pathetic nature of your house call, and how altruistic he's been. Poor thing: only in her pajamas, he muses, allowing you the time.

"I, uhm," you quiver, "am not sure how to ask you this."

John leans forward slightly, tilting his head to let you know he's listening.

Considering how rough you look, the hour, and how antsy, he knows he needs to step in. Whatever it is. The worst scenarios begin to bubble, making his head spin until he forces himself to stifle them. It could be nothing. Still and all, you're clearly not here for the conversation.

After more than a beat of silence, you release your bottom lip from between your teeth. "I burned my dinner."

"And I hate to ask, but— I-I didn't want to run to the store so late." It's even dumber when the words are out in the open. Seriously? Bothering the nice man over burnt sauce? You consider sucking it up and waddling home to choke down a frozen meal or something equally as unfulfilling.

Maybe even moving out and changing your name.

Echoes of your conversation prior come back to him. He told you to call him, damn near groveled, if you ever need anything. Though he didn't expect the first favor to be a late-night food errand, he couldn't possibly leave you hanging midair. A swaying, fictile little mess on his porch. One who needs him. It's been weeks since he felt that, no doubt missing leading his team. Being depended on like life and death. And it is.

He has to remind himself now that it isn't anymore, at least not right now. Forces himself to muffle his savior instincts.

John forces a squint, coupling a faint smile. "You did the right thing. What do you need?"

You stammer as you explain yourself, despite the neighbor showing no sign of irritation. Mentioning your cravings, how tired you get, that you let things at home get out of hand—

These things are all expected to Price. He gives you a supportive nod, raising a thumb to wipe at your wet cheeks. It soothes you instantly. Makes the hysteria feel less.

"It's alright, it's alright... Why don't you go back inside, hm? Can't be out here this late."

His palm finds purchase on the small of your back, matching your slow pace as you turn, slippers scraping along the pavement. Pathetically, you step inside your entryway again, facing him when he doesn't cross the threshold behind you.

Before you can unfetter the meek thank you festering in your throat, he points his index at the sofa. His effortless authority makes you fold instantly. Despite its soft nature, John is not a man you want to clash with.

The plush cushion dulls the thorns along your spine and tailbone, allowing the extra baby weight off your muscles. You don't even try to conceal the grunts and groans when you sit down. Coyness, subtlety; there's no room for it. And you're certain the gruff man next door has dealt with worse and dirtier.

"These your house keys?" He inquires, only to inform, since he nabs them right after.

John pays little mind to your answer. Either way, he's making this errand his mission and he knows better than to disappoint. The keys chime when he gives you one last glance, giving you a sharp glance that says stay right there, or else.

You had no intention of moving, but that alone made you feel like you were already in trouble.

The half-hour he was gone was the longest wait of your life. Stomach grumbling, eyes drooping, you gazed mindlessly at the television until you heard the lock releasing. A paper bag crumbles as he cradles it, and you whip your head around to catch a glimpse. You're not sure of him or the food. Without so much a word, he strolls into your kitchen and gets to work, like he owns the place. Internally, you cringe at the thought of the mess he'll have to work around.

"What did you get?"

"You'll see," his voice echoes from the other room but drifts closer mere moments later. Over your shoulder, you're handed a variety pack of sweets. "And 'm sure these will keep you and the rugrat satisfied until I'm done."

The words sound so gruff that you almost chortle but pull yourself together with an appreciative nod. (Once his back is turned, your self-control is a different story. With a handful of M&Ms in your mouth and the mental image of him fretting over what candy to buy you, the wait isn't so bad—)

The faint clambering continues, and you do your best to focus on the television. Trying not to picture how good he must look right now, focused heavily on the spread of ingredients, cooking them to perfection; all in hopes of appeasing you, the burden next door, to whom he owes absolutely nothing. The aroma soothes your nostrils, the ones still clashing with the stench of charred food. Spewing into the trash bin isn't entirely unlikely, though, regardless of how good of a cook he is.

Plates clink in your peripheral, jostling you out of the daydreams. His eyes are still immersed in your mien, long after he hands one off to you and cagily lowers himself onto the edge of the coffee table as if hand-feeding a ferocious animal. Praying that it won't lunge and tear him apart. You lean back and pick up the fork, giving the meal an oversee. Some sort of salmon seared to perfection, and a side of veggies that you can tell were pre-cut. He is yet to dig in either, you notice, by the lack of movement.

"It's okay for baby," John reassures, eyes flickering from yours to your bump, "I checked."

You brush it off with a shy smile, deciding to focus on stabbing into a little bit of everything to get a full bite. The staring doesn’t stop, but doesn’t feel odd, either. It’s nice to be the one considered first. Cared for.

It‘s an unprecedented, too-good-to-be-true sensation that you figure you will only savor as long as it lasts. Maybe just tonight.

The first bite quiets your buzzing ears and nagging abdomen. Not too pungent or fishy and the texture doesn't make you gag—a rarity nowadays. You... actually feel a wealth better, despite not craving any of this in the first place. How he pulled it off is a mystery.

You chew intently, giving compliments with a mouthful. "It's—"

"Good? Good." His posture livens as if the praise is what he'd been waiting for. He takes it as an incentive to begin eating his half, too. There is no way he would've without your blessing.

Making progress on helping is no issue when you aren't feeding only you. The sliver of awkwardness that lingers in the air is obstinate, though. A good, hearty meal doesn't distract once all is said and done. John is nothing more than 'John' to you; the (potentially unlucky) empathetic guy next door, and you're the pest that keeps finding its way in.

Too piteous to squash between his fingers. They smooth the fissures, soothing and lulling into a sense of shelter.

"What's on your mind, love?" He probes, leaving a few bites behind on the plate. Suddenly, your aspect adjusts and takes in the closeness of this all. He is across from you, palms on his knees like they're ready to extend at a moment's notice.

A small, willfully dense hm? escapes before you can recover, but his demeanor never splinters.

"You went somewhere."

You blink. "Just thinking... The baby, and well, everything else. I'm a mess lately. And... and, there's so much to do and I feel like I'm out of time, I guess." His eyes survey you, brows knitting with perturb. It's obvious being willingly vulnerable is a new taste for you. But you can't stop the burdens from spilling.

The same goes for tears.

It's his moment to swoop in, to feed his instincts. Seeing you was enough to send them into overdrive, but now, with glossy cheeks and desolate globes— the swell knocks the wind out of him.

Gnarled pads of his fingers smooth along your skin again, more tender than on the porch, because this time, it isn't soiled dinner you're teary-eyed about; it's your future.

Somehow, some way, he's already picturing his home in it. He doesn't listen to the nagging voice telling him it's too soon or doomed from the start, like all his lovers.

"None of that, lovie. Please don't say that." You lean into his hand, treating his homage like evangel.

Another sob racks through you and your cheek's against his heart. Rushing; hammering; thumping, so loud you can't make out his comforts until you settle your breathing. Small, defenseless protests threaten to leak, each time cut short.

"No use in getting yourself worked up, eh? Doesn't do either of you good." Your head nods along, soaking in every word. The motion grows weaker the longer he sits you in limbo, forced to accept his support. Talking is... futile, pointless, now. He's right and he's got you pinned.

Achingly, he leans forward until you're resting against the cushion again, no longer straining your back to maintain the embrace. You're too drained, merely sagging backward and accepting it. Too tired to resist gentleness.

You can get a good look at him this close.

The humanity seeping through a hardened gaze. Muscled, forbidding limbs tingling with the unfamiliar sensation of benign. Though you can almost hear the thoughts race through his head, John remains placid for your sake.

His gaze lingers on you for a moment, head tilting when you finally reciprocate the eye contact, satisfied. "You need rest." Off to the side, he lifts the corner of the throw blanket and begins draping it along your frame, tucking in around your bump. The gesture doesn't go unnoticed.

"And 'm only a knock away," he adds, bracing his knees to come to a stand, a muffled grunt escaping his teeth.

Something's missing. He has more to say. Instead, he distracts by turning on his heels. It's too soon. Not yet.

Part of him buzzes when you speak up again, hoping, praying that you'll prove his thoughts wrong.

A groggy 'thank you' fluxes his way instead, and he can practically hear the droop of your eyelids.

"No need." He replies, patience stifling the fury. "I'll be in tomorrow, see how you're doing."

A shameless self-invite he regrets once it's in the air, but sway is the one thing he can't—won't—lose. If there's one lesson that stuck with him all these years, it's that you take what you can get.

Minute milestones. A slow smolder. Baby steps.

That's what it will take.

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justagalwhowrites · 3 months ago

Text

Yearling - Ch. 40: Home

Jackson holds a celebration. The final chapter of Yearling found on Tumblr in its entirety here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Smut :) No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ Only

Length: 7.7k

A/N: We are through the spoiler-y portion now and you're all OK to read from here if you just want to see how the fic starts to come to a close. There is no more overlap with TLOU 2.

AO3 | Chapter One | Previous Chapter

December, 2002

“Is that pot?”

Your oldest brother, Brendan, damn near jumped out of his skin, looking around frantically for a moment before his eyes settled on you and he calmed, his hand going to his chest.

“Shit, bug,” he said. “Yell it, why don’t you.”

“If I yell it, Mom’ll take it away,” you said, joining him at the fence on the edge of your father’s property, climbing up and perching next to him in the moonlight. “But that means I need motivation to keep my big mouth shut so you’d better fuckin’ share.”

He scoffed but passed you the joint, anyway. You took it and breathed deep, pulling the smoke into your lungs and holding it there until the urge to cough was too strong and you gave into it, handing the joint back to your brother, clouding the winter air with a pot-scented haze.

“Jesus, getting high with my baby sister,” he chuckled. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“It’s because you’re getting old,” you teased lightly. He smiled and shook his head, taking a hit before passing it back to you. You took a hit, too, a smaller one this time, trying to make smoke rings as you breathed it out. “So. How’ve you been?”

“Good,” he nodded slowly, taking the joint back. “Thinkin’ about starting up my own ranch…”

“No shit?” You asked, brows raised. He nodded. “Good for you. Think you’d be good at it. I do gotta ask though… This have anything to do with Amanda?”

You teased out the last word and he laughed.

“Was waitin’ for that,” he said. “Talked to Mom have you?”

“Here and there,” you said. “You really ask for Gran’s ring?”

“Jesus…”

“C’mon,” you elbowed him. “You’re thinkin’ of marrying her?”

“More than thinkin’,” he smiled a little. “If I’m marrying anyone, it’s her.”

He took another hit and passed the joint back to you and you nodded, mulling that over in your head. Your brother, settled down enough to get married and start a ranch of his own. It seemed like a completely foreign concept but it was one you liked.

“You’d like her,” he said after a few minutes. “Amanda, I mean. She might come to New Year’s, think you two would get on like a house on fire. She’s studying to be a vet, specializing in large animals. Only person I know who likes horses as much as you.”

“Damn,” you said, taking a hit yourself. “She does sound great. Too good for you, that’s for damn sure…”

He snorted.

“Don’t I know it.”

You passed him the joint again.

“Can I ask you something?” You said after sitting in silence for a minute.

“Shoot.”

“How do you know?” You asked.

He frowned.

“Know what?”

“Know that…” you sighed. “I don’t know, know that she’s the one? That you want to marry her and all that shit?”

He smiled a little, nodding knowingly as he did.

“Well,” he said. “Sounds dumb, but… when you know, you know.”

“Jesus,” you rolled your eyes and he laughed.

“I’m serious,” he said. “You’ll know. But… Well, she’s my favorite damn person. I don’t want to do anything without her if I can help it. I love everything about her, even the shit that drives me nuts. Mostly, though, I just want to live life with her, you know? Want to go grocery shopping and do dishes and fuckin’ mow the lawn… all that shit. It all sounds great because it’d be with her. That’s how you know.”

You nodded slowly, trying to imagine feeling that way about anybody. It didn’t really seem possible.

“Don’t sweat it too much, bug,” he said, clapping you on the shoulder. “You got plenty of time before you need to worry about that shit. No need to rush into it. Just wait until the time is right and you’ve found the right person and then you’re good. It’ll all work out in the end.”

He was right, you thought as you nodded again. You had all the time in the world but, eventually, you’d find someone you’d want to share it with. Even if that sounded insane now, you thought you would. You looked up at the cold, December sky, the universe stretched out before you and you took a deep satisfying breath.

“Yeah,” you said. “I think it will.”

***

July 20, 2029

“Joel, where the hell is your wife?”

Tommy and Joel both looked at each other before looking to Maria, confused.

“Don’t think it was my turn to watch ‘er,” Joel said, setting his whiskey down. “Actually, think it was the exact opposite of my turn to watch her what with tradition and all…”

“Well maybe it should have been because I can’t find her,” Maria said, clearly flustered. “I’ve checked your place, her old place, the room she was supposed to be getting ready in…”

Joel smiled a little to himself, shaking his head and getting up from the table. There was one obvious place Maria hadn’t checked.

“Maybe she’s gettin’ cold feet,” Tommy teased, smirking. “Lord knows she’s too smart for you, anyhow. Maybe she figured it out…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Joel said, adjusting the collar on his shirt. He was in too good a mood to even give his brother shit back. “Don’t think it works that way if you’ve already been married a year and a half. Besides, I think I know where to find her…”

“Just tell me,” Maria groaned, half-heartedly trying to stop him. “I’ll go. It’s bad luck for you to do it.”

“Think we already had more than our share of that,” he said, giving her a wink. “Think we’ll be OK.”

He left his brother’s kitchen and started toward the stables, walking in the opposite direction of most of the town, everyone making their way toward the gathering place in the middle. They gave him warm smiles and nods and congratulations as he passed and he smiled back, a little bubble of warmth in his chest that swelled as he made his way to you. Because while Maria might not know where you were, he sure did.

He heard you before he saw you.

“You’re doing good,” you said. “Try not to let your fingers get ahead of where your mind is though, that’s where you’re stutterin’ a bit…”

“Easy for you to say,” Joel almost heard Savvy’s eyes roll as she teased you. “You don’t have as many fingers to keep track of.”

You barked a laugh at that as Joel came into the stable. You were perched on the wall of Perseus’ stall, Savvy and Ellie sitting on either side of you, the guitar he’d made for Savvy in her arms. She noticed him before you did, giving him a little smile.

“Here,” she said, passing the guitar to you. “You should play something Dad likes since you’re getting married today and all.”

“Look at you, bein’ all sentimental,” you teased lightly back. But you took the guitar and drummed on it for a moment before settling on a song. “Alright, this is the first thing he ever played me. His version is better but this song always makes me think of him now.”

Joel just leaned against the door, watching and listening as you played I’m On Fire, that warm glow in his chest somehow growing as you did, wondering if you could possibly be any more perfect. You were wrong about one thing, though. Your version was better.

It had taken you a while to pick up the guitar again. You’d been back more than two months when he came home from a short patrol to find you on the couch, the guitar he made you in your arms and a determined - if frustrated - look on your face. You glanced up at him when he came in before looking back at the instrument.

“I’m tryin’ real hard not to throw this,” you said, arranging your intact hand on the neck of the guitar. “But it’s pissing me off.”

“Think I’d rather you throw the pillow,” Joel said wryly, coming to sit beside you. You rolled your eyes. “Want to show me?”

“Not really,” you said but you did anyway, starting to play the way you had for years and then seeming to forget that you had two fewer fingers, notes missing and fumbled and you shouted in frustration, almost throwing the guitar before clenching your jaw and moving to set it on the coffee table. Joel took it from you before you could, setting it on the other side of the couch before pulling you against him and kissing the top of your head.

“You were sounding good there, baby,” he said, stroking your arm. You scoffed. “Mean it, you were.”

“Yeah, I was playin’ a mess of bullshit there at the end,” you said. “Real good.”

“It’s gonna take time, sweetheart,” he said gently. “You spent a long time playing the way you used to. Takes a while to adjust. You’ll get there…”

“Because there are so many famous eight-fingered guitarists,” you muttered, your voice thick.

“Sure, but you’re better than every guitarist I’ve ever heard of,” he said, tugging you closer. “You will get there, baby. If anyone can it’s you.”

You sighed but snuggled into him and he hoped that you believed him. He wasn’t just saying it. Something inside him knew that you’d find a way to make music again the way you used to.

He was right. It took a few weeks - a few weeks of almost perpetual frustration - but you got there. He watched it happen, the moment it seemed to click into place almost startling in its clarity. You were playing in the kitchen while he cooked, not really working on anything in particular, just seeing what sounds you could pull from your instrument and how you could make them work together in that way you had when, all of a sudden, you played a few notes in quick succession. Joel frowned to himself and glanced over his shoulder, hoping you weren’t paying attention to him. You weren’t. You were intently focused on the guitar, your hands frozen on it for a moment before you did it again, adding more chords this time. The next thing he knew, you were playing the riff from Layla, laughing as you did.

“Joel!” You looked over to him after playing it a few times and he’d stopped pretending he wasn’t watching you, just leaning against the counter so you had the space to do what you needed to do. “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah baby,” he smiled. “Sure did.”

You made a giddy little noise and carefully arranged the guitar in your arms again before starting over. He had to practically pry the instrument away from you when dinner was done but you were beaming when he did, even though the place where you’d lost fingers was bleeding from the guitar strings.

Joel made you something after that, a simple piece of leather that covered that sensitive place and looped down around your wrist. It seemed to work wonders for you, making it easier to play guitar and work with the horses and he let himself feel good about it. He’d done something for you that made your life here better. He could still take care of you, still give you what you needed. They hadn’t taken that, too.

It still took a while for things to get back to normal. Or close to normal, anyway. After everything that had happened over the last two years, Joel didn’t think there was any real way to go back. You still woke up afraid some nights, his leg still bothered him more often than not. But there were good changes, too. Savvy had moved into the bedroom you’d set up for her, happy to have her mother to come home to again. Ellie came around all the time, often with her girlfriend in tow - something that had taken Joel by surprise but had settled into quickly. You’d even become more involved in Jackson, joining the council in the most recent election after Maria encouraged you to run. When the results had come in you sat there, wide eyed, for a moment before you got up and smiled and thanked people for voting for you. It was the shortest acceptance speech Jackson ever had.

While he wouldn’t want to go back and relive the worst of those times, he was starting to think the heartache was there for a reason. It was to get you both here, to this place, building your family and community together.

You finished the song and Ellie and Savvy clapped and you scoffed.

“Sounded real good there, baby,” Joel said from his place by the door. You didn’t jump at the sound of his voice, instead just looking over your shoulder back to him. “Tryin’ to show me up?”

“Nah,” you smiled, handing the guitar to Ellie and jumping down from your perch. “Never could with I’m On Fire. Other shit, though…”

He laughed and shook his head a little as you walked over to him, a blissful smile on your face, and he gave himself a chance to really appreciate you in that moment.

Joel always thought you were beautiful. You were beautiful when he’d first seen you in the forest years ago now, you were beautiful when you fell asleep against him when watching movies, you were beautiful when you came home covered in sweat and dirt and the smell of horse. But damn, were you ever beautiful here, like this. You were in a white eyelet lace dress that went down to your ankles, dropping low enough at the neck that the swell of your breasts were going to be a constant fucking temptation. Savvy had made you a crown of flowers that sat on your head and Joel’s old wedding band hung on a chain around your neck and your cowboy boots had been polished to shining and damn did he want to sweep you off your feet and carry you back home to hide you away from everyone else looking that good.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re the most beautiful woman on the damn planet?” He asked as you draped your arms around his neck and his hands found your waist.

“You,” you smiled, your eyes crinkling at the edges with it. “From time to time.”

“Should say it more then,” he smiled back. “Been slacking.”

“You’re not supposed to see her, you know,” Ellie said, trying to sound stern but smiling a little instead. “Maria told me.”

“Well someone decided to sneak away without tellin’ anyone where she was headed,” Joel teased lightly.

You just smiled broader.

“The important people knew where to find me,” you said.

Joel looked between you and the daughters you shared.

“Yeah,” he said. “Suppose we did.”

He took your hand and the four of you headed for the middle of town, Joel kissing you goodbye in a spot that was a little tucked away so not everyone would catch a glimpse of you.

“You’re too damn pretty,” he smiled. “Don’t want to spoil it for everyone. See you up there?”

You smiled back.

“Try and stop me.”

Joel wasn’t sure he’d ever felt quite so happy as when he watched you walk down the aisle toward him. The two of you said more traditional vows this time, Savvy and Maria by your side, Ellie and Tommy by his. There was something about making promises to you publicly, where everyone the two of you knew could see, that just felt right. You exchanged new rings this time, ones made of the antler of a moose Joel had felled a few months earlier, him slipping yours on your middle finger this time. When he kissed you, the rest of the town fell away and it was just you and him, the way it felt like it should be.

The whole town celebrated after, tables put out on the grass and lights hanging from the trees. Someone had rigged up a sound system and the children of Jackson chased each other, weaving in and out of tables shrieking and giggling as they went. You and Joel were sat at a head table with the girls, Tommy, Maria and William and Joel kept his hand on your knee all through dinner.

To kick off the dancing, Joel tugged you onto the floor, your chin tucked into your chest, and swayed slowly to Hallelujah, so like you had the first time he danced with you, before everything had fallen into place this way. You smiled and pressed close to him, moving alongside him in front of everyone the two of you knew in the world and Joel was happy.

Back at your table, he was just starting to think of a way to steal you back to the house when Ellie gave you a look, jerking her head off to the side. You gave his shoulder a squeeze and smiled, a little nervously.

“See you in a second,” you said, before following Ellie, who was whispering conspiratorially with you.

“What in the hell…” Joel frowned, watching you.

“Just have to wait and see, Dad,” Savvy said, looking far too pleased with herself.

He didn’t have to wait long. You and Ellie returned with your guitar and a boom box, Tommy setting up a chair for you in the middle of everything so everyone could see you before cutting the music.

“Hey, everyone!” Tommy yelled, his hands cupped around his mouth like a megaphone. “Pay attention to my baby sister!”

The whole of Jackson obeyed and Joel could tell that you were fighting the urge to just go and be next to him, far from the public eye. Instead, you stood next to Tommy, the guitar Joel made you dangling from your hand, Ellie standing nearby next to the boom box.

“Thanks, everyone, for comin’ tonight,” you said, your accent thick like it was when you got nervous. Joel smiled a little, the sound of home coming from your lips. “Means a lot to us that you’re here and sharing this with us. It means a lot to me, especially. I know it took me some time to settle in here because I ain’t had somewhere to call home with anyone other than my daughter for a real long time. But here feels like home, and the way everyone here has welcomed us… it means everything to me.

“Now, a lot of y’all may not know it but…” you took a deep breath and Joel could see you try to swallow your nerves. “I’m something of a musician. I don’t much like playing for anyone besides family but since I feel like y’all are family now, well… seemed only appropriate I play for everyone here tonight.”

You sat down and rested the guitar on your lap.

“Music’s always been the way I get my feelings out,” you said, now focused on Joel. His heart swelled. “I’ve never been great with words and I love you just doesn’t feel like enough when it comes to you, Joel. This ain’t much but… feels closer at least.”

You gave Ellie a nod and she pressed play on the boom box and Joel had to fight to not tear up as you played, the song growing and swelling as it went on, the boom box adding in piano and violin. The music was beautiful and intimate and made Joel think of the quiet mornings he spent with you in his arms, trailing his fingers over your the curve of you, your breath warm on his skin, gently kissing his way over you before the world woke up and it was just you and him and the love you made together. He loved those mornings with you, he wanted countless more of them and he could practically see them now, laid out in front of him like the world at his feet.

When the song ended, the whole of Jackson was silent, the only sound the rustle of the breeze on the trees. You tugged your lower lip between your teeth and, for half a second, looked like you wanted the ground to swallow you up. But then, all at once, everyone broke into applause, thunderous and adoring and you gave Joel a bashful look. Ellie took the boom box and your guitar to stash them away again as you made your way back to him, what seemed like everyone in town on their feet for you as you went.

“Hope that wasn’t too embarrassing,” you said as Joel pulled you in close.

“Baby, that was incredible,” he said, giving you a long, deep kiss. “I didn’t even know you’d been workin’ on the piano and the violin again!”

“I know,” you smiled a little, pressing close and tight to him. “You’re a hard man to surprise. But once I figured out the guitar, I wanted to get those back, too. Tommy even helped me tune the piano at my old place.”

Joel looked to his brother who gave him a small salute before he turned back to you.

“You’re amazing,” he said, resisting the urge to take off with you then and there. You just rolled your eyes before he kissed you again and he tried to be content with just having his arm around you as everyone in town made their way up to congratulate the two of you.

After what felt like a small eternity - and a few more dances with you - Tommy finally leaned over to whisper in Joel’s ear.

“I’ll hold down the fort and make sure the girls are all good,” he said. “Get outta here before you lose your damn mind.”

“Thanks, man,” Joel clapped him on the shoulder and Tommy just gave him a lopsided smile, one that Joel would would call paternal if it came from anyone else. He supposed it did from Tommy, too, now. It was still an odd thought, his brother finding his way to a wife and a place in the world before Joel had, that Joel was the one playing catch up and, in some ways, relying on his brother for help and guidance. But with you, it felt like he’d more than caught up. He’d come out ahead.

“Hey,” Joel gave you a little squeeze and whispered in your ear. “What do you say we get outta here, Mrs. Miller?”

“Really?” Your face lit up and Joel smiled and nodded. “Oh thank fuck, I don’t think I can talk to anyone who isn’t you or the girls again for a week…”

He laughed a little, pressing a kiss to your shoulder.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s sneak out…”

Joel took your elbow as you got up, the dance floor full as Tommy got to his feet, cupping his hands around his mouth like a megaphone again.

“Ladies and gentleman!” He yelled. “For the last time tonight, Mr. and Mrs. Miller!”

Joel gave him a look and Tommy gave him a wink as everyone turned and clapped. You and Joel waved goodbye before he put his arm around your waist and pulled you tight against his side, leading you home.

***

“Mrs. Miller,” Joel trailed his nose over your cheek, his words quiet in your ear.

“Hm,” you grunted in response, eyes still closed.

“C’mon,” he said softly, his hand smoothing over your stomach that was still covered by your wedding dress. “Gotta get up, we got places to be.”

You opened a skeptical eye at that. The ceiling of your bedroom was painted orange by the sunrise and Joel was there, smiling down at you, his curls still a little unruly from where your fingers had wound in them the night before.

“Where do we have to be?” You asked. “Pretty sure we get the day after our wedding off.”

“We do,” he said, his hand gliding over you, between your breasts in the low cut of your gown, over your chest to cup your cheek. “But still want to get an early start. Made you coffee, let’s go.”

“Early start for what?” You asked, sitting up now.

“Don’t worry about it,” he smiled. “You’ll like it, promise. Think you can ride a horse in that pretty dress of yours?”

You gave him an incredulous look.

He laughed.

“Fair enough. Then let’s get goin’.”

“Do I need to pack a bag or anything?” You asked, trying not to groan as you got out of bed.

“Already handled,” he said. “All I need is my beautiful wife to come along for the ride.”

You smiled a little.

“Think I can manage that.”

You had coffee and slices of leftover wedding cake with Joel before walking with him, hand in hand, to the stables, the sound of Jackson just coming to life around you as you went.

It felt a little silly to still be in your wedding dress but, you had to admit, it was a damn nice dress.

Staying in it the night before had been Joel’s idea. His lips had been working their way over your throat to your ear before he whispered to you there.

“That dress of yours comfortable?” He asked, a little breathless.

“Yeah,” you panted, pulling back just enough to frown at him. “Why?”

“Because,” he said, taking a moment to nip at your lower lip. “Did things backwards our first wedding night, already had you naked when we said our vows. Kinda want to have you in the white dress, make a real pretty mess of you in it.”

You smiled, reaching up and trailing your fingers through his hair.

“Whatever you want, Mr. Miller.”

He made you come four times in that dress the night before and you passed out in his arms before you could will yourself to move enough to take it off, too tired from the day of celebrations to bother changing once he was done with you.

It had been Joel’s idea to have a wedding ceremony. He’d brought it up a few months before, once you’d fallen back into life in town again, things as normal as they could be now. You still sometimes felt the ache of fingers that were no longer yours, you still sometimes woke up afraid that your daughters were gone, but you’d healed, too. Your skin was no longer broken and raw, you could play the music you loved again, you could go down the hall and look in on Savvy when you woke up afraid she was gone.

“We’re already married, Joel,” you laughed at him, your feet on his lap as you played guitar one night when Savvy was out with Kyle. Orion snuggled closer to your knee. “You forget that just because we don’t wear the rings anymore?”

“Never forget that,” he smiled a crooked smile at you as he massaged the arch of your foot. “One of the best damn nights of my life. But… I think now’s a good time to celebrate that with our family. Girls weren’t there for it, neither was Tommy. Think it’d be nice to do it again with them.”

You nodded slowly, mulling it over. It wasn’t a bad thought. You did want to share that with Savvy and Ellie, especially now that Savvy would actually be happy about it. And you knew that Joel had missed Tommy and Maria’s wedding, something he regretted now that he had a proper life here in Jackson. You understood why he’d want his brother there. You’d want your brothers there, too, if they were still alive.

“Sure,” you said eventually. “Let’s do it. Have witnesses when you make promises to me this time around, really hold you to that shit…”

He laughed at that.

“Damn right, baby,” he said. “You can hold me to whatever you want.”

Plans quickly grew, though, from just your family to family and friends to the whole of Jackson. Warren manipulated patrol schedules so there would be one afternoon that everyone was in town, damn near every chair and table that could be moved set up for the reception. It had become more than a celebration of you and Joel, changing into something celebrating the peace the city had known in the year since Mitchum’s downfall.

The raider attacks became almost non-existent, patrols hunting down the smaller side groups and wiping them out quickly once Mitchum’s control fell away. After that, even the threat from infected lessened. With fewer people in the forests in the miles around Jackson, there was less reason for them to be there. Patrols had become quiet and mostly peaceful, the town no longer afraid of what they might lose every time the gates to the city opened.

You were happy for the excuse for the focus to not be entirely on you all night, anyway. You’d never been comfortable being the center of attention and, while you liked having a chance to actually show how much your husband meant to you after years together, having that many eyes on you got old fast. Going home just you and Joel had been a relief.

“Hey there love birds,” Olivia said when you got to the stable, two sets of reins in her hands. “Ready to get underway?”

“Think so,” Joel said, taking the reins from her, Renaissance and Ares both packed like they were leaving for a long patrol. “Thanks for doin’ this.”

“Hey, anything to get her to take a break,” she gave you a wink. “Lord knows she deserves it. Have fun you two.”

“Joel,” you laughed, almost nervously, following alongside him as he led the horses to the gate. “Where are we going? What’s going on?”

“You’ll see,” he smiled a little as you reached the gates, handing you Renaissance’s reins. “Just have to keep up.”

You raised your brows at him and he laughed.

“Alright, just have to let me lead for a change, how about that?”

“That, I can do,” you smiled.

It was an easy ride, you following where Joel led, smiling and laughing and breathing in the fresh, clean scent of the forest as you did. For a while, you so rarely left Jackson after Mitchum. No matter what Joel and Tommy and Maria and Julie said, it didn’t feel safe. The worst things that had ever happened to you had happened outside those walls, it just wasn’t worth the risk to leave. If you were inside, in the house you shared with Joel and Savvy or at the stables or the Tipsy Bison, everything would be OK.

But you missed the outside, too. You missed how crisp the air was when you were outside, the sound of the animals in the wild, the way the world spread out in front of you vast and unclaimed.

Joel, Ellie and Julie had been easing you back into it. Julie asked you for help collecting fruit for one of her cocktail plans one day. You’d been hesitant but she convinced you, your whole body stiff the entire two hours you were outside, hyperaware of everything around you. But because you were so aware, you noticed everything too, things you’d missed like the rustle of the grass and the way the air smelled. You were a little more willing to go then.

Ellie told you she wanted to practice shooting as she got ready to go back out on patrol, taking some time off from it after everything that happened. She asked you when Joel was busy and Olivia was there to take over at the stables and you knew it was contrived but you went with her, anyway. She kept you talking, pointing out different birds and asking questions about things that you knew she knew the answer to but it did make you miss being out in the wild more. When you told her you knew better, Ellie kept pretending she had no idea what you were talking about.

Joel, at least, hadn’t tried to couch it in anything. He’d been holding you one morning when neither of you had to be anywhere, his fingers trailing gently up and down your arm.

“Been thinkin’,” he said quietly before pressing his lips to your forehead. “We should take the horses out, go on a short trail ride.”

You frowned.

“Why? They’ve been gettin’ plenty of exercise, don’t have any that need to be tested outside of town right now…”

“Because you could use it,” he said. You stiffened but he kept tracing his fingers over you, up and down.

“Joel…”

“You’ve been gettin’ out here and there,” he said gently. “And I know you miss it.”

“I miss how it used to be,” you corrected him. “It’s different now.”

“Don’t have to be,” he said. “Just come with me.”

You sighed, but he kept going.

“Just a few hours, not gonna take you far,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe.”

You pressed your lips together into a thin line, trying to calm your nerves as he pulled back to look at you, his eyes locked on yours.

“Would I try to get you to do somethin’ that wasn’t safe?” He asked gently. You gave him a look and he smiled a little. “I’ve got you, baby. Just you and me where you can open the horses up and get back out in the trees a little. I’ll be there the whole time, I’ve got you. S’OK.”

His eyes were so soft and his face was so open that you sighed and agreed. The first time had been scary. You only went for a few hours but you couldn’t relax the entire time you were gone, fully outside what felt like Jackson’s control for the first time since you’d come back. But Joel was right. He stuck close to you the entire time, always watching for any kind of threat, always ready to protect you. You made it back to Jackson in one piece, the only shots fired to take down a few stray infected ambling through the area.

He gradually got you to leave the walls of the town more and more, even convincing you to bring Savvy and Ellie along one day, and you realized - as you sat on a picnic blanket with your husband and daughters - that the safety may not have been the walls of the city after all. It may have just been Joel.

You felt comfortable now, outside Jackson with the man who had become your home, your safest place, your husband twice over. The trees were thinning, four hours into your ride and off the more beaten path. You looked at Joel, brows raised and he smiled.

“That’s where we’re headed,” he said. “When we get to there, go ahead and open ‘er up, you’ll know where to go.”

“So mysterious,” you teased and he shrugged, smirking a little, as you broke through the trees.

The sight was almost damn near idyllic, a small lake that was clear as glass, a cabin with a big front porch complete with a swing sitting on the other side of it. You looked at Joel, mouth open in shock.

“Me n’Tommy found it few months back,” he smiled. “Been fixin’ it up. Plenty of space for us, the girls, anyone they want to bring along. But… wanted to break it in right, just you and me. Besides, pretty sure I’ve owed you a honeymoon for a while now.”

You laughed, almost giddy, and pushed Renaissance into a full gallop, skirting along the edge of the water, standing in the stirrups so the air sent the skirt of your dress billowing out behind you. You rode her up to the porch, slipping out of the saddle before she’d come to a full stop, too excited to get a look at the place. You realized there was a small dock just off the porch, a rowboat tied to the side of it, and wildflowers among the grass outside the cabin.

“I do OK?” Joel asked, getting off Ares and coming up alongside you.

“This is amazing,” you said, awed, as you took it all in. “I can’t believe you did all this, it’s…”

You couldn’t find the words, just looking at him, a small smile on his lips.

“C’mon,” he said, taking your hand and leading you up the front steps. He opened the front door but stopped you from going through it. “You gonna let me carry my wife across the threshold? Always wanted to do that with you in a wedding dress.”

You laughed a little and draped your arms around his neck.

“Think that can be arranged.”

He bent and swept you off your feet and into his arms, making you laugh.

“Then let’s go, Mrs. Miller.”

He carried you through the front door and into the living room, some faded couches and mismatched arm chairs around a fireplace. Behind them was a table big enough to have the whole family gathered around it, a set of stairs beyond that and a kitchen off to the side. There was a bundle of wildflowers in a jar of water in the middle of the table, a shelf of board games and cards sitting next to the hearth.

“Give me a few minutes to get the horses settled,” he said, setting you down and kissing your temple. “Then I’ll show you the best part of this place.”

You took your time taking in the place, how much care you could tell Joel and Tommy had put into it. You could see places in the wall that had been patched, shelves that had been mounted. There were stores of canned foods in the cupboards, a canister of tea, a jar of honey, even a pair of matching mugs, both chipped with little owls on them that made you smile. In the living room, there was art on the walls: one of a horse grazing in an open field and another of a deer standing next to a moose in a clearing. You smiled, leaning in closer to see Ellie’s signature in the corner.

“She wanted to contribute,” Joel said from behind you and you turned to face him. He set packs down on the couch and you smiled as he came to you, putting his arms around your waist and tugging you against him. He trailed his lips along your forehead, your temple, down toward your throat, his hands slipping up your sides to slide into the low neck of your dress, making you moan.

“Want to see my favorite part about this place?” He asked, heat on his voice. You just nodded and he pushed the top of the dress down, bearing your chest to him. “No one around for miles. All alone out here. So I can have you all to myself, naked, in that water out there.”

He took the globes of your breasts in his large hands, cradling the weight of them gently in his palms, squeezing you and you groaned at his touch. He kissed you, dipping his tongue into your mouth and you pulled at the buttons of his shirt, opening them one by one.

“Should get me naked then,” you said breathlessly when he pulled away from you ever so slightly. “That water looks awful inviting.”

You undressed each other quickly then, Joel’s shirt and pants ending up in a heap on the floor, your dress draped over the couch. He took your hand and led you outside, pulling you along into the cool water. It was smooth and clear on your skin, the sandy bottom of the lake soft on your toes. He pulled you deeper, until the water was up to your shoulders, before tugging you against him. You smiled and he tilted your head so he could kiss you, his thumb over your cheek, fingers curving around the back of your neck.

“I can’t believe you did all this,” you said quietly as he held you close. His thick, hard cock was pressed against your stomach, your breasts pressed against his wet skin. “You didn’t have to…”

“I wanted to,” he smiled, his forehead against yours. “I want to give you everything, baby.”

You reached and put your arms around his neck, arching your back against him.

“You already have,” you said softly. “You gave me you.”

His hands drifted lower, cupping the round of your ass and lifting you so you could wrap your legs around his waist. His cock was pressed against your slit and you moaned at the feel of it, the way the water and the tip of him moved against your clit already making your pussy tighten. He lifted you, dragging the thick of his length over your sex until he notched his head at your entrance and he moaned.

“Goddamn baby,” he said, voice tense with want. “Can feel how warm you are inside already…”

He pulled you down onto him, his cock pressing into you slowly, slow enough that you could feel how he opened you to him, stretching you around him. You groaned, burying your face in his neck and breathing in the smell of him.

“Fuck you feel good,” his mouth trailed over your neck, your bare shoulder. “So goddamn good, taking me so well…”

Your fingers sank into his skin and you pressed yourself impossibly closer and tighter to him as he bottomed out inside you, your clit pressed against the base of his stomach, the whole of him thick and heavy inside you.

“Joel,” you whimpered. “You’re so deep, feel so good…”

“I know, sweetheart,” he breathed, taking his hands from your ass to your back to clutch you close. “I know.”

He held you close and tight and you managed to pull your face from his neck to look at him, your eyes on his, noses brushing, breathing into each other as the water cradled you both. You moved together, every rock of your hips and thrust of his slow and aching. You weren’t able to tell where he ended and you began and you could feel his breath quickening as the heat inside you grew stronger, your channel getting tighter.

“Want you to come for me,” he whispered, voice trembling. “Need to feel you, come on baby and come for me.”

You could only moan in response, his thrusts growing firmer as you pressed your clit against his skin, his arms tightening around you. You were right on the edge, so close exploding around him.

“Come with me,” you managed, clinging to him. “Please, I need to make you come, please…”

He cut you off with a kiss, swallowing your needy sounds, moving in you desperate and claiming. Your orgasm built higher and higher, drawing you so tight around him it seemed impossible until he pulled you so close it almost hurt, body flush to his as you felt him come undone inside of you.

It only took a moment for the pulsing of his cock to set off your own orgasm, making you throb and flutter around him as rope after rope of his come filled you. For a moment, it was as though you and Joel were the only people left in the world, the way he was around and inside you the only thing you could be sure of then.

He held you after both your orgasms eased, his softening length still inside you, your head on his shoulder, your arms around him as his lips brushed your neck. The water was still and quiet around you, a soft breeze on the air and you smiled against his skin, a sense of peace settling over you as you did.

It had taken so long to reach this point, so many years of pain and healing, so much you needed to move past. But it had all led you here, where you were together, where everyone you loved was safe and happy and you didn’t need to be afraid anymore.

Joel’s hand trailed slowly up and down your spine and he pressed a kiss into your skin.

“I’m so happy we got here,” you said quietly.

You felt him smile against your shoulder.

“Me too, Bambi,” he said, kissing you again before pulling back from him just enough to look you in the eye. “Come a long way in the last few years.”

You smiled a little.

“Hard to believe,” you said. “I didn’t think I’d ever have something like this. I didn’t know it was possible to have something like this.”

“Me, too,” he said. “Makes it feel like all the shit we went through to get here was worth it.”

“Yeah,” you said, kissing him gently. “It does.”

You looked in his eyes, just appreciating him for a moment, the tan of his skin and the gray of his hair and the wrinkles and the scars that told the story of everything that he’d survived and felt deeply that he was one of the most beautiful things you’d ever held.

“So,” he said after a few minutes. “Since this is a honeymoon and all, we got the place to ourselves for as long as we want it but figure we’ll want to get back to the girls before too long. What are you thinkin’ baby?”

You hummed for a moment, considering.

“Well,” you said. “I do miss the girls. But… I like having you all to myself. Think I want to stay here, where I can take advantage of the fact that I can get you naked whenever I want, for at least a few days. Maybe a week.”

He smiled.

“Week sounds good,” he said.

“Plus,” you said. “We can always come back in the future. Have as many honeymoons as we want.”

“Yeah,” he smiled wider. “We can. We got time.”

You kissed your husband, soft and slow, before pulling away and smiling back at him.

“We do,” you said. “We have all the time in the world.”

A/N:

Hi, everyone!

I cannot believe we are here. Exactly one year ago today I published the first chapter of Yearling and now I'm publishing the last.

Thank you so so so much for going on this journey with me, Joel and Bambi. These characters have meant so much to me over the past year and it has been just an absolute joy to share them with you. I hope you've enjoyed how they've grown together and built the life they'll have from here on out.

If you'd like to keep reading what I'm sharing, I am starting up another few fics. There's an AU of Yearling that you can find here and I am working on another Joel fic that is a no-outbreak AU where Joel is reader's bodyguard. It's called The Savage and the Sanctuary and you can find that here.

I've always been bad at saying goodbye, so I won't do that. I will just say thank you for coming on this adventure with me and for all the love and support you've shared. I hope to see you again soon.

Be well, take care of yourselves, and spread a little kindness in the world.

Love you!!

Taglist: @ashleymsnodgrass@planet-marz1@kalea-bane @juneswonderlust @ilovepedro @h-annahayy @starstruckmusiciansartghost @beccerjune @mumma-moonchild @netonetoneto @mellymbee @purplelye @n7cje @flugazi @evyiione @randomhoex @aliengirl99 @orcasoul @reds-ramblings @pedropascalsbbg @fupoola @tinypotatothing @knopes-waffles @lilmizmoz @ayamenimthiriel @jenispunk @panda-pascal @sarap-77 @flugazi @your-slutty-gf @daniegraceg @partyofone3413 @cumberpegg @noisynightmarepoetry. @fifia-writes @grumpygrumperton @srmacaroni @txlady37 @bigboiseason123 @ashleyfilm @arizonadreamingg

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #yearling #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x oc

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lisenberry · 1 month ago

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The mountain is you

Ch. 3: I hear your voice in my head

Dom Price x Fem Reader

MDNI/NSFW/18+

CW: Dom/Sub, Bondage, Sex Work, Pain Play, Spanking, Temperature Play (shower), Spit, Voice Kink, Size Kink.

(Chapter 1, Chapter 2)

AO3

You sat back on your heels with your hands folded in your lap as he walked in. His bootsteps seemed to vibrate across the wooden floor beneath your pillow. A steady gait, with all of the suspense of a drum roll.

As you faced the high-backed chair, you could only make out the top of him until he made his way closer into view. He was tall enough when you were standing up. But on the ground at his feet, he eclipsed everything else around him. There were no windows, no ceiling. Just his thighs giving way to his waist, his arms and shoulders.

Your head tipped back as far as it could just to take him all in, and even then, you came up short of meeting his eyes.

“Already off to a good start, I see. You look lovely, sweetheart.” He appraised you in a way that was both agonizingly slow and methodically brief, as he took off his jacket and slowly rolled up his sleeves

“Thank you, sir,” you answered, to the spot on his chest where his flannel shirt opened in a V. It earned you a quick bob of his head in approval.

He was starting you off easy. That much was clear. Like a teacher on the first day of school. Throwing you softball questions to gauge how much of the summer reading you’d done over break. How you responded determined how far he’d push you, and which side of him you’d get.

Could he see the goosebumps spreading across your skin at the mere sound of his voice?

“Next time, I want you to look at me when you say it.” He bent down only slightly, aiding your efforts just enough that you could obey.

His clear eyes glinted patiently between his dark lashes. Dark brows, dark beard. They were like signal fires along an unknown path. No choice but to give yourself up and follow.

“Yes, sir.” A slight smile pulled at the corner of your lips as the first flutter of heat worked its way from your cheeks down to the echoing emptiness in the cradle of your hips.

“Good. I like to begin with an inspection. To assess your readiness, and to make sure your healed from the previous session.”

“I’m ready,” you quickly admitted when his bare hand grazed against the side of your cheek. You turned into it, starved for even the slightest touch of his roughened palm.

“And I like to take my time exploring what’s mine,” he rumbled, firmly snagging a hold of your chin. A gesture that simultaneously chastised you for speaking out of turn, and possessively staked his claim.

You let out a surprised breath, and he took the opening as an invitation to slip his fingers inside your parted mouth. Two at first, and you instinctively flattened your tongue and closed around their impressive girth.

“That’s it.” A short hum of approval followed, as your eyes slipped closed while you sucked them deeper into your throat. “Don’t overexert yourself just yet. There’s plenty of time to show me how much you can take.”

He let you savor him a bit before he pulled out with a wet pop of skin and spit, and you nearly fell forward at the loss. You licked at the salty trail his skin left behind on your lips.

“Turn around and bend over the stool.” He pushed a plushily upholstered ottoman closer behind you. It was the perfect height to kneel and bend against as your arms fell over the other side.

“Open your legs wider, don’t be shy.” He folded up the hem of your skirt and brazenly pawed at the meat of your ass in wide circles. You felt the stretch and pull at your exposed holes, and you wondered if the pads of his fingers were abrasive enough to leave scratches behind.

In the way his voice had already left etchings on your mind.

“Christ, you’re soaked. Have you been touching yourself?” It was barely even a question, the inflection missing from his even tone.

“Yes.” He pulled his hands away at your answer, leaving a chill in its absence, intentionally. “Sir,” you quickly corrected.

“Good girl.” A harsh clap to your backside was your reward. It smarted with a sharpness that caught you off guard. He wasn’t taking it easy anymore. “What do think about when you play with my sweet little cunt?” His hand returned between your legs, and with it, a probing forefinger glided along the sensitive split of your folds.

You jumped at the sensation, pulling away from the intimacy of it. How long had it been since you were touched like this? Ghost had only ever let you use toys on yourself. Those were the rules, for your safety and his. Where were the rules now?

This is what you wanted...

“This, sir,” you answered with more certainty than you felt. Another slap, and your muscles melted into the ottoman and your legs parted wider to brace for the next impact.

But it didn’t come. Instead, he pulled back and cleaned off his slick smeared fingers along the side of your thigh.

“This, sweetheart, is just a warm-up,” his low, sardonic voice crooned, as his hands snagged in your hair and arched you back far enough to see him towering behind you. The back of your head hit the front of his thighs. “I’ll try to take it slow this time, but no promises.”

Oh fuck, he was good, you shuddered at the thought. The unknown. The waiting. The surprise. He ticked the boxes of your kink like he wrote the book himself. Like he’d been paying attention. You almost broke scene in your gratitude, but you kept your eyes trained up at him, wondering if he could see it written all over your face.

He must’ve, because for a moment, he broke too. A subtle crinkle at the corners of his eyes, a brief softness that you would’ve missed if you blinked. Just before he bent down lower, and spit on your face.

He released your hair as you sputtered in shock when it hit your closed lips with a warm splat. Your tongue darted out to taste the small piece of himself he offered to you. Not a kiss so much as a wad of spit on the palm to seal the deal. A promise to take care of you.

As you moved to catch the drop that rolled down your chin, he took hold of your wrists and held them above your head. With a quickness that left your mind spinning, he knotted a loop of smooth rope around each one, binding them together like a sturdy set of cuffs. He slung another loop over the exposed wooden beam along the ceiling.

Handy, you thought as he tied it off with a slipknot that left you hanging up on your tip toes. Once again, the ottoman slid underneath you, but this time you kneeled on it. He eyed you up and down, making sure you were secure before letting go of the steadying arm at your waist.

You weren’t weightless. You knew this about yourself. No one picked you up and carried you around because you were so tiny and pocket-sized. You were just a woman, and hadn’t met someone big enough to throw you around like you were made of air.

You had substance. You were made of things. Matter and atoms, and particles, or whatever. Flesh and bones.

So, when you hung there suspended, it felt like a dream, and all you could do was focus on the parts of you that felt contact. Your wrists. Your knees. The ropes that cut into your skin, the plushness that kept you from hitting the floor. You established your center of gravity and braced for the worst with an anticipatory thrumming low in your belly. Deep within the cradle of your hips.

Nothing would pitch you over. You could take anything.

True to his word of being honest about what he was going to do, he flashed the paddle in front of you. As wide as his hand, it was made of wood and wrapped in leather. It made Ghost’s crop look like a feather duster.

You let out a clarifying breath through your teeth, licking at your spit-soaked lips to find that tether. To his promise that burned sweet like spearmint and menthol tobacco.

“Anything you want say before we start?” His rough-edged voice posed both challenge and threat.

It was the first stop on the train, you reminded yourself. And he was making sure you knew you could get off anytime.

“No, sir—”

The words barely left your lips before he delt the first blow. The slap of leather to skin echoed through the house, bounced off the windows and the walls.

You didn’t scream, not yet, but the sting welled in your eyes to match the blooming fire on your ass. When the second one swiftly followed, and even harder than the first, you nearly swallowed your tongue to stifle a gasp, wondering if he wanted to hear you.

But you weren’t an actress. This wasn’t for show. If he wanted to hear you scream, to see you cry, he had to earn it. Right there alongside you.

The third and fourth came slower and with slightly less force, but the fifth nearly rattled your teeth.

“Oh, fuck!” You finally exclaimed, no longer able to blink back the tears.

“You liked that one, did you?” He had the nerve to laugh behind you. Was he emboldened by your feedback? Was he enjoying this as much as you?

It wasn’t long before you lost track of how many whacks you’d taken. He didn’t bother counting them aloud like some clock ticking away the time. There wasn’t a limit. The only one who could stop it was you.

“Had enough, yet?” He checked in, winded from his own exertion.

“No, sir.” The words came slower, as if you had to pluck them out of a messily discarded pile in some dark corner, the more your strength drained away. You were so close. Right there on the brink. You could see it like a trail disappearing over the horizon.

A steadying hand found your shoulder, squeezed warm and firm, as he moved closer behind you. Enough to whisper in your ear.

“I’m not going to stop until you break.”

With the last command, and a final searing crack, you felt the fresh gush of squirt as you finally let go. The scream you’d been waiting for. That maybe he had been, too.

The sweet release that stole your breath and your mind, and dragged you all the way under. And he hadn’t even touched you. There was no vibrator strapped to your thigh. Just a gentle hand on your shoulder. The polarity to the abuse on your ass. Nerves flayed and blown wide, you still needed the one thing that would pull you back together.

“Touch me, please,” you whimpered, with a voice hoarse from crying. “I need to come.” Deep in the subspace, you sagged limply against your bonds.

“I can’t deny you anything, sweetheart. Not when you ask so nicely.”

He pulled the quick release on the rope and caught you against his chest. Sitting back on his chair, he held you facing forward onto his lap. You were boneless, propped up only where he held you tightly in his grip. Careful not to hold your neck, he instead wrapped his forearm under your breasts, cupping one in his palm through the thin silk fabric of your slip and pinning your bound wrists to your chest.

His other hand started at your mound of curls and trailed lower, parting the folds to slowly reach the tender bud at its apex. He brushed it once, twice, before reaching lower. Swirling circles around your opening, tracing along the trembling rim before gliding back up again.

You squirmed weakly against his hips, desperate to touch him back. To guide his hand where you wanted him to go, but you were helpless to do anything but weather his patience. To be led at the pace he set.

His beard grazed the top of your shoulder and along the side of your neck. In your addled brain, you imagined that he kissed you there, that his lips and tongue and teeth met skin. That the ragged breaths of his need matched your own.

As his thumb worked the pearl of your clit in faster, deliberate circles, those thick fingers you suckled earlier slid deep into your walls. The achingly tight stretch, combined with the precious friction brought you to a roaring climax of moaned oaths and sounds you’d never heard before.

“You did so good.” You felt his hot breath against your shoulder as you shattered around him, along with a quick, supportive peck of his soft lips. Too soft and too brief to register over the riot in your blood. “I’m feeling generous. Let’s try something else.”

A pouty whine of doubt was all you could offer, still in the incomparable thrall of an orgasm in subspace. You couldn’t say no. So deep under his sway, you’d give him anything. Let him do anything. There was no room for resistance in that vast, cloudy place.

But you didn’t know what else was left. What laid ahead was too far beyond your reach.

No thoughts, only sensations. You couldn’t even focus enough to see beyond the fog. All that held you up was the sound of his voice. The strength of his arms as he lifted and turned your dead weight, hooking your wrists around his neck. His hand never leaving your throbbing cunt.

“None of that. You’ll like it, I promise. But you’ll have to trust me.” He curled his fingers forward, hooking deeper in a way that had you muffling your wild shrieks into his chest. “You do, don’t you?”

“Mmhmm,” you hummed, until he pulled his fingers away. You clenched down harder and sank against them, but he slipped them free despite the protest.

“Words, remember? Need to know you’re still with me.” He swatted your cheek with the same sticky, wet palm. Not enough to hurt, but it pulled you back out just enough to speak.

“Yes,” you answered, biting your lip to see if it was still there. That you weren’t just a cloud of disembodied mist. “I trust you,” as another slap opened your eyes to meet his.

He really expected you to keep up the formalities after what just happened? The world was a different place. Surely the continents had shifted, and the oceans had dried up.

But there he was, you noted as he came into focus. You hadn’t just imagined him. Those signal fires lit up to guide you once more through the dark. There was a freckle on his nose. A dimple just above his beard. He seemed to pause as well, and you realized how firmly he was pinched with restraint. How tightly he held his own need for release.

If it was a word he wanted, you’d give it to him.

“Sir,” you finally finished, with a small smile pulling at your tingling cheek.

“There’s a girl,” he said with a low chuckle, as he carried you to a different room.

One that smelled like sandalwood and citrus, with walls of such a bright white that you buried your face further into his shoulder to shield your eyes from it. The fuzzy, light flannel was a soothing contrast to the sting at your backside. It still pulsed and burned with each course of blood through the muscle and fat.

“You made quite a mess of yourself, I’m afraid. Need to clean you up.” The sound of creaking metal and the spray of water were harsh to your ears.

A strangled sound escaped your lips, half a cry, half a whimper. This was going to hurt. Your overexerted pussy perked up at the prospect of it. It was a devious little thing, swollen and puffy with eagerness that your body could survive another round of punishment.

No, it wasn’t punishment, you corrected yourself. It was what you needed.

He set you down slowly onto the closed toilet seat, untied your hands and pulled the silk shift up over your head like a doll being undressed and put to bed. The sleek porcelain was so cool against your bare skin that you shivered at the loss of its paltry heat.

“I’m right here.”

Keeping his eyes on you and his hands not far away, lest you fall over, he arranged a chair made of PVC pipe into the open shower area and stripped from his own clothes with a quickness that spoke to his own enthusiasm. It was either that, or a natural efficiency with which he did all things.

Pants, shirt, boots. Until all that was left was the dark hair that covered him in varying degrees of masculine thickness from head to toe, and his briefs. An erection tented the fabric to such a painful degree that you reached out for it, only to be distracted away.

“This one’s all about you. Don’t tempt me to change my mind,” he slanted you a look that guaranteed you’d regret it as he mouthed at the back of your hand absently.

Two kisses? You could get greedy for them if you weren’t careful.

But before you could muster any disappointment, he had you by the arms again and positioned you over the makeshift chair. You sat astride it, with your ass facing just out of the stream of water and an opening below for easy access between your legs. Your tits draped over the top.

He kneeled in front you, all the better to watch you to submit to him, when your rational brain was clamoring to find your safe word. Abraded skin meeting hot water was a next level consequence that you weren’t prepared to face with him.

You usually did that part alone with a bottle of wine, your comfort candle, and your favorite movie waiting for you on the softness of your sofa.

But the endorphins that kept you down in the subspace also kept you pliant, giddy with desire. Fearless. Reckless, you would’ve argued, if you’d been in some other state of mind.

Not when you still felt the aftershocks of bliss, and the rawness of your paddling. Instead, you did your best not to flinch as he directed the steaming water along your skin. Where you expected a searing torture, there was instead a satisfying burn. Just shy of scalding. Just shy of too much. It heated you up like a cauterizing iron to a wound. A healing type of hurt.

Unlike a misplaced hand shying away from a hot stove, you leaned into it. Arched against it like a bear to tree bark. That itch you’d never been able to reach. Dark and subterranean, it skittered around underneath, unable to be caught by the light.

And just when you thought you’d had enough—when the nerves began to die out under the overwhelming blaze—he turned it up hotter still. A new wave of pleasure and pain, as the backs of his knuckles caressed the needy patch of your sex.

Violence on one side, and serenity on the other. Like two sides of a coin flipping end over end into an infinite universe. It built a force within you that finally collapsed on itself, consuming you whole. Slower, and somehow more shocking in its intensity than the first.

“Is this how stars are made?” The last dizzying thought before you slipped beyond reach.

You awoke as if from a dream some time later, with your head in his lap and wrapped in a velvety soft gray robe. Big enough to fit you like a blanket, it must’ve been his. The clarity hit you fast, and you sat up with a start. The waiting surge of adrenaline that always followed a scene found you well-rested.

“I am so sorry.”

“Easy now. Here, drink this.” He adjusted himself to move with you, not letting you go as you tried to bolt, and tipped a bottle full of water towards your lips.

It even had a straw. How thoughtful.

“Thank you,” you added, not able to meet his assessing gaze. Had you even said that yet? Where were your manners?

“You’re welcome,” he answered breezily. As if not really knowing what to say himself.

Probably because you squirted all over his expensive looking ottoman and said weird things about turning into a constellation when you came your brains out.

“I don’t want to keep you any longer. I didn’t mean to take up your whole day.” You looked at the clock and couldn’t believe it was already evening.

How long had he sat there just holding you? Your empty stomach reminded you of the food you’d meant to stop for on the way home.

“Are you hungry? I can order dinner if you want to stay a bit longer.” He sounded more confident after you’d drained the water and handed it back to him.

You never wanted to leave the cocoon he’d wrapped you in, but it was best to take it slow as you stood to find your discarded clothes tucked behind the sofa.

“I actually made plans, but next time, yeah?” You assured him, when he looked at you so vulnerably that you reached for him. It was only a brief touch to his forearm, but he seemed surprised by it. “Will you send me your availability?”

A shitty way to say, “You just changed my life,” but you hoped there would be a next time. That there was still more you could do for each other. You still had to hold up your end of the bargain.

“My calendar’s wide open, sweetheart.”

#call of duty #captain price #john price #captain john price #price x reader #captain price x reader #captain john price x reader #cod smut #life connect 141

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stareaterau · 1 year ago

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Chapter 1 episode 3

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Let's see if these two have murdered each other yet

CW: injury, blood, violence

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"You're that bird person from the alleyway."

In front of Scar, the familiar stranger stands motionless and quiet, framed by the striated walls of the ravine. Despite having placed their weapon back in its sheath, they still look as if they’re on edge. Their body is tightly wound, their wings held out slightly, in a subtle effort to make their form larger, combating Scar's height. At their side, their taloned hands hang, fidgeting restlessly.

Scar shuffles awkwardly under his piercing gaze, growing more uncomfortable by the second. His reflection stares back at him from the deep, black voids of their eyes. At first, Scar had thought that they were utterly black, but, looking now, he can see the slight edge of brown circling his wide pupils, the bright sun casting an almost purple sheen across their surface. They’re quite pretty, he muses, as he waits for the other's response. He rocks on his heels, grimacing slightly at the deep ache setting into his legs and the soles of his feet.

Growing impatient at the silence, Scar reaches out, tempting fate by waving his hand in front of the bird's face. Nothing. The stranger continues to stare at Scar, unblinking. The only sign of recognition he can decipher is the slightest flicker of his feathers as they bristle at the proximity. Scar huffs, disappointed at his failure to evoke a reaction.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have big, creepy eyes?”

That manages to break him out of his stoic stare. He splutters awkwardly, gawking, an incredulous look crossing his face. He looks away, embarrassed.

“Ah hah! You looked away, I won the staring contest!” Scar grins triumphantly.

“I wasn't- what? I was just processing-” The stranger doesn’t return the disarming gesture, their mouth a thin line. Their arms clank softly against each other as he crosses them. Scar hadn’t gotten a good look at them before. He’d thought that they had just been wearing a long, black undershirt at first, but there’s no mistaking the dark metallic casing and wiring of the robotic prosthetics.

“Imagine the chances we’d ever meet again, huh?” Scar grins wildly, stepping forward with as open a demeanour as he can muster, pretending he’s meeting an old friend. He almost is, in a messed up way.

The stranger doesn’t return this warm gesture either. Instead, he frowns at Scar, a multitude of emotions unsuccessfully masked as they cross his face. His gaze flickers up to meet Scar’s eyes before something scared or sorrowful flashes in him, directing the strangers' eyes to their feet instead. Their expression now hides behind their tangled hair as it falls across his face. He searches for the right words, but they die on his tongue. Shaking his head, he resets his expression, carefully masking any unwanted emotion. Finally, he looks back at Scar with a soft yet concerned smile.

“I- I couldn't- I sorta thought I killed you that night.”

“Oh… OH! I'm like a ghost to you!” Scar raises his hands in a mock scary gesture, making a low ‘ooo’ sound to do his best imitation of one. It would put everyone else’s attempts to shame at the yearly Vindicators' spaceween party, he thinks smugly. He’s sure his attempts to lessen the tension between his evidently awkward company and himself is working. It always works… or it works sometimes at least… Actually, this might be the first time he’s been able to get this far.

Unamused, the stranger raises an eyebrow. “Well not so much anymore- you'd be a pretty bad ghost if I could’ve tackled you that easily.”

“Ah- that's no fair. You have wings… and I don’t have the ability to turn incorporeal, yet.”

“Mm-hm.” The stranger hums, shifting as they drag their taloned feet through the sand, etching grooves in the grainy surface. Scar pauses, racking his brain for a response, desperately not wanting to lose the traction on the conversation he had just gained. If he lets the stranger shut himself off now, he’ll have to do all the work to get him to open up again. Scar doesn’t want the only sounds in this empty desert to be himself and the whistle of wind through sandstone tunnels.

“My name is Scar, by the way.”

The stranger turns his attention back to Scar. Pausing, as if they’re expecting there to be more to that statement. They frown, not looking convinced.

“Is that a nickname, or just an unfortunate coincidence?” They ask, tentatively, like they’re trying to avoid saying something to offend Scar.

“Hah! Wouldn't you like to know!”

That, out of everything, gets a laugh. However, the stranger quickly tries to disguise it behind a fake cough, burying his face in his arm. Scar smirks, satisfied by the other's reaction, ignoring a twinge of pain from the knife wound in his shoulder.

They look back to Scar, a more playful expression creeping its way onto their face. “…Yes, that is the nature of a question.”

Their wings slowly lower back into a more natural position, the muscles relaxing— not muscles, his wings look robotic, too. They’re covered in feathers, but they’re held up and moved by a metal armature where the bone should be. For a second, Scar wonders how much of their body remains untouched by metalwork.

Regardless, Scar just beams at him, revelling in his ability to make them laugh. Happy with his ability to lessen their agitation, he makes no indication of wanting to answer the question.

The stranger chuckles awkwardly at the silence and shrugs.

“Heh… well, my name's Grian.”

“Oh! That name really suits you.”

“Thanks?”

Scar watches as they pick up their helmet off the ground, shaking it gently to knock out the sand. They clip the helmet to their belt and turn away from Scar, walking off in the direction Scar had been headed earlier.

“Where are you going?” He calls out at him.

“I- We-” Scar catches the way Grian corrects himself, hoping that means his new friend has decided not to try attacking him again, “-should get moving to somewhere with more cover. It's getting darker.”

“Wh- how could you even tell that? It feels like the whole sky is just the sun.”

To emphasise his point, Scar stands up straighter, turning his gaze to the sky to try and pinpoint the sun within the harsh light. After a moment, he shields his eyes from the glare with his hand. Another moment later, unsuccessful, Scar lowers his gaze. He blinks rapidly and rubs his eyes, trying to lose the blurry afterimage that stays behind and plagues his vision. Grian looks away from Scar, an unreadable, mostly uncomfortable expression on his face. He flexes his wings, shaking his feathers out, then strides away.

Scar realises he’s falling behind. He catches up hastily, coughing up an air of responsibility to match Grian’s. They are a ‘we’ after all.

Scar is honestly glad for Grian's company. He provides a familiar face, even if he is a familiar face he met only briefly… and a familiar face that promptly tried to kill him upon reuniting. At least Scar doesn’t feel like he has to pretend to be serious around him— Grian has that handled for the both of them. Although, Scar is certainly going to do his best to break through the birds' cold facade. “So, are we heading in any particular direction?”

Grian shakes his head, before realizing he should elaborate.

“I can fly up and scout out a direction later, but not now. Right now, I'd like to find a spot to rest.”

He stretches his wings out fully, the feathers bristling as the hinges make a soft rattling whine. Scar marvels at the impressive wingspan. He’s never seen wings quite this big before.

“You were flying a lot?” Scar watches them, intrigued. They don’t look like elytra, despite their metal parts, and Grian has far more control over them than even an experienced user. Elytra also don’t tend to come feathered like his— his look jarringly realistic. Maybe he’s an avian?

Scar’s never actually seen an avian before, though that’s not out of the ordinary. Most people haven’t. Could robotic enhancements be commonplace amongst them? Scar is somewhat familiar with enhancements, they’d even been offered to him once, but he’d declined, opting for the less invasive options. Mechanically enhancing what were once organic wings is the only option Scar can think of that matches Grian’s capabilities. That must be what he is, Scar concludes. Though, he pictured avians being taller.

“Yes,” Grian replies bluntly, his tone changing noticeably at the subject.

“Do you have an enderchest?” Scar inquires instead, searching for topics that aren’t sore spots.

Grian whips his head up to look at Scar, a bewildered expression spreading across his face.

“...What? No.”

“Dang it.” Scar sighs.

“Why would you want an enderchest?” He asks, growing curious after the initial surprise.

“I lost mine. It has some pretty important things in it that I need.” Scar hums, looking down at his scratched leg braces. They’re starting to creak under the strain of walking for so long. If Grian had one, he could use it to access his stuff. He really could do with his cane, or anything that can ease the stress on his braces. Grian follows Scar’s gaze, a particularly strained expression returning to his face. Scar frowns at how he almost looks guilty.

“I know you’re a Vindicator and everything,” Grian makes an effort to maintain the current topic and hide the distaste in his tone as he eyes Scar’s neat, albeit dusty, uniform. Scar isn’t surprised by Grian’s opinion on Vindicators. Grian was wanted by them when they had first met, but he at least has the decency to swap his tone out for a more apologetic one towards the end. “Enderchests aren't as common as you think. It might be a while till you can get to one.”

“...Really?”

“Yup.”

“Do you know where we are, then?” Scar quizzes, taking note of Grian's phrasing.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don't know where we are, or how I got here. You're the first person I've seen.”

Grian looks away, pausing to calculate his answer. His hard-won casual demeanour bleeds back into his previous defensive apathy. “We're in the same boat, I have no idea.”

Scar watches him, sure that Grian is holding something back. There’s something he doesn’t want Scar to know. He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. Pressing him on it would probably just push the avian further away. The last thing Scar wants to do is push away the only person he’s seen for miles, especially when that person seems to know more than what they let on. He chooses to stay quiet. He’s anxious to avoid agitating the bird further. He still has a weapon, and Scar is rather fond of the idea of not finding himself on the other end of it again.

Silence falls over the two, the only sound coming from their steady footfalls meeting the sandy ground, and the whistle of wind through the caverns. Eventually, his worry about Grian shutting him out completely resurfaces, but he isn’t sure what to say.

“So… got a favourite animal?”

“You have an awful way of being chummy with your would-be murderer.” Grian titters.

“I wouldn't call you that.”

“Still.” he shrugs, unconvinced.

“I don't think you were trying to kill me. At least not the first time.”

Abruptly, Grian stills, his feathers bristling.

“And about today- I'm not dead, and you’re not in the process of killing me, see?” Scar carries on. Grian turns away sharply, but Scar is undeterred.

“You're a pretty unsuccessful murderer, if you are one. I've put myself in more danger on purpose than you’ve put me in on accident.” Scar barks out a laugh, but receives no response. Grian's face hides behind his cheek feathers and hair.

“You don't know me,” Grian replies flatly.

“But I'd like to.”

Scar tilts his head, stepping in front of the bird, trying to get a read on his face. They lock eyes only briefly. Grian’s eyes are wide, his brow furrowed, and his face contorted by a frown.

“Anddd- we have time-” Scar adds more gently, “You said you wanted to rest.”

“What if my kind of rest doesn't involve talking?” Grian retorts, tone still flat, but the slight lilt of amusement is unmistakable.

“Oh, well-”

Scar doesn’t get the chance to finish his thought. A shrill, distorted cry fills the sky above them.

Grian and Scar both turn on the spot, their heads snapping in the direction of the sound. Soaring above them is a colony of three familiar creatures. Bright green eyes lock onto them both.

“Are those-”

“Phantoms.” Grian finishes, his feathers standing on end, fluffing up reflexively.

“What are phantoms doing here?” Scar asks, searching Grian for any indication that he knows what’s going on, but the avian looks just as clueless. Phantoms shouldn’t be here. They are artificially manufactured creatures, used as surveillance drones and protection in big cities, or anywhere where the landowners are wealthy enough to afford them. Scar encountered many during his patrols in the capital of Vindicator territory. They definitely aren’t something you would find in the wilderness, let alone a desolate desert like this one. They don’t even count as wildlife, as they’re more robotic than organic. The last of the desert sun reflects off the metallic plating lining their backs as they twist and glide through the air. The bright lights of their eyes shine, harsh and cold, illuminating Scar and Grian with a green glow in the ever-darkening wasteland.

Grian grabs Scar's elbow and drags him towards the walls of the ravine.

“We need to hide!” He hisses. Scar, not arguing, follows him through the tighter passages of the caverns. Unfortunately, they don’t provide as much cover as they had hoped, the walls still far enough apart for the bat-like creatures to give chase. They dash into a covered tunnel, but they have already been spotted, the phantoms fly lower, circling.

As one of the creatures dives towards the entrance, Grian pushes Scar behind him and backs them both closer to the wall. Scar, taken aback by the sudden protectiveness, can only go along with it in a dumbfounded daze.

“Do you have a weapon on you?” Grian asks, quickly scanning him up and down.

Scar falters. “Uh- no.”

“What kind of Vindicator are you?” Grian raises his voice, pulling an expression somewhere between angry and amused.

“Hey! I didn't decide I wanted to be stranded without weapons- they've been taken.” Scar counters, a comically sad look on his face.

“What?” Genuine surprise plasters across Grian’s features. Another piercing shriek fills the air, interrupting him, as another phantom separates from the group and dives towards them.

Quickly, Grian turns back to face the danger. Spreading his wings out as far as they can go, he presses Scar into the sandy, stone wall. Scar splutters, feathers catching in his mouth. As delighted as he is that Grian is now deciding to protect him, Scar can’t help feeling defenceless as Grian takes their lives into his own hands.

“We are so screwed with one sword between us.” Scar complains hopelessly, pushing the feathers out of his face. The phantom barely misses them, metal slamming into soft rock with a clang, causing sand and debris to rain down over them. The creature flies back to regroup with the other two, hopefully with wounded pride. That is, assuming it’s even capable of feeling pride.

“It's also a gun,” Grian adds.

“It's also a gun!?!” Scar gasps, a plan formulating in his mind. “How!? Show me! A gun is way more useful!”

Utilising the advantage of being held so close to the avian, Scar reaches forward and grabs the sword out of its holster, unnoticed.

“No, that's a bad idea!” Grian cries as Scar ducks, slipping under Grian’s wing and sprinting ahead to the mouth of the cave.

As he raises the blue blade, Grian lets out a shrill yell. He lunges for Scar as the Vindicator inspects the weapon, prodding at the grooves for a button and thumping the hilt against his palm.

Scar clicks a button that looks like a trigger. The knife folds in on itself, clipping in place, and the blue blade shrinks as a portion of its energy is diverted to fill a small bar. That must signify the ammo, Scar hums to himself, pleased at this discovery.

"Don't shoot it!" Grian yells with surprising ferocity, but Scar can’t see an alternative. Grian reaches him, grabbing onto Scar’s injured shoulder. He bites down on his tongue, hard, to avoid flinching. Making use of his military training, he forces himself to push through the throbbing pain.

Grian quickly releases him, hissing in pain himself. Scar doesn’t take the time to find out what hurt the avian, instead scanning the phantoms as they twist in the air, preparing to dive again, excited that their prey has moved into the open. He aims, and fires.

The shot makes contact with a phantom just as it dives towards them, long metal claws spread wide and teeth bared as it shrieks. The bullet burrows into the soft, fleshy material on its lower jaw, embedding itself deep in the phantom's head. The creature's cry dies in its throat, its eyes flickering out. It tumbles to the ground, kicking up dust in front of Grian and Scar. Smoke billows out of the mouth of the creature, the bullet wound smouldering.

Scar hears a quiet “woah” from behind him.

“Ahah! Did you see that??” Scan grins, amazed that he actually hit it on his first try. Scar spins on the spot to face Grian, who blinks at him, mouth agape. Scar twirls the gun in his hand, the remaining blade shrinking as more power is diverted to refill the used ammo.

Grian huffs, regaining his composure, and scowls. “Well, I was looking straight at it, so yeah- and give me that!” He snatches his weapon back from Scar with a grunt.

The other two phantoms dive into the ravine. They move faster and more daringly, learning from the mistake of their fallen friend.

“Oh … oh no.” Scar whispers.

Grian unfolds the weapon, its blade noticeably smaller than its original size, and places it back into its holster. “See, I told you the gun is a bad idea! Ask before you waste someone's bullets!”

This time he makes a point of keeping his hand on its hilt, both to prevent Scar from trying to take it again, and to be ready to fend off the approaching phantoms if they get too close.

“There's only two now- I could just hit them again!” Scar argues, casting a panicked glance at the approaching creatures.

“That was pure luck- without bullets, I don’t have a blade, and without a blade, I'm without a weapon!” A dark tone infects Grian's words as he glares at Scar, who sighs defeatedly.

“Well, what else can we use? There's no other projectiles.” The phantoms scratch at the exit, waiting for either of them to get too close.

“I don't know, be creative with it!” Grian huffs hopelessly, his face taut with frustration.

“I could throw you.” Scar teases, eyeing up the shorter man to emphasize his joke. Grian just stares back at him with a deadpan expression, and Scar giggles to himself. Scar takes a small step towards the exit. Not too far, but it's enough that one of the phantoms spots them separate and focuses on him with a screech.

Grian shoves past Scar, who continues to giggle to himself, and reaches for the only other thing he has on him. Holding his helmet in his hand, he takes a full-bodied swing at the phantom clawing towards him, close enough to scrape against Grian’s arm. Metal cracks against metal as he hits the phantom, hard, and it’s flung back by the force. The creature rolls helplessly through the sand, metal plating creaking under the strain of the new dent. Grian inhales shakily, thankfully unharmed.

Scar lets out an alarmed cry, and Grian looks up in time to see the phantom regain its bearings. It shakes, sand flying off in every direction, and launches itself back into the air with a powerful flap of its wings. It circles a few times before swooping back down towards them, faster this time, its eyes blazing and its jaw wide and unhinged.

Grian panics. He makes an involuntary squawk and launches his helmet right at the injured phantom. The helmet collides with the phantom's head with a sickening crunch, and the phantom falls limply out of the air.

“Aha! I got it!” Grian shouts triumphantly. Scar cheers behind him, just as surprised that it worked.

Their celebrations are horribly timed. The final phantom wails and plummets towards them. They both throw themselves out of the way, only to watch it grab the helmet in its claws and retreat over the ravine walls, out of sight.

“Noooo!” Grian cries out, running hopelessly back into the ravine. He stretches his wing out, readying himself to take off after the phantom, but he hesitates. He decides against it, holding his head in his hands, groaning over the loss of his helmet.

“…. Well …at least it's gone now,” Scar says, walking up beside Grian, hoping to cheer him up a little. Grian just laughs, dejected.

Sighing, he looks up at the sky. The sun has almost entirely disappeared from view now, revealing a dark red sky. Grian yawns, stretching his arms over his head. He flinches as his wounded shoulder is pulled by the movement, and Scar yelps quietly to himself, his hand reaching for his own injured shoulder.

Grian turns to Scar, a tired look on his face. He eyes Scar’s jacket as he rubs at it absent-mindedly, the fabric stained from where Grian had stabbed him. Grian frowns, contemplating his next move.

He walks past Scar, his steps heavy on the sandy ground. Re-entering the cavern, he all but collapses onto the sandy ground. Exhaustion and pain catch up to him as the adrenaline from the fight wears off. Sand billows around him as Grian’s tail drags across the floor, curling around himself. He looks up at Scar, who hasn’t moved, hesitating over what to do while Grian makes himself comfortable.

“...Come here.” Grian instructs him, his expression softening.

“Okay?” Scar replies, and sits himself down next to the bird. Slumping against the wall, he lets out a sigh of relief, glad to finally be off his feet.

Looking at Grian, he expects him to move away, but the avian shuffles closer to him.

“Alright then, take off your jacket.” Grian taps Scar’s arm, directing him.

Scar complies, pulling his shirt over his head at the same time.

“Just your jacket!” Grian squawks, “You don't need-” he fumbles at Scar’s teasing grin.

“It's hot! Besides, it’s a perfect opportunity to show off my awesome pecs.” Scar flexes for added flare. The softness is gone from Grian’s face.

“I just need to get to your shoulder.”

“Oh- what are you doing?”

“Wound dressing, or it's gonna get infected.”

“You have healing supplies?” Scar raises an eyebrow.

Grian fixes Scar with a weird look. Of course he has healing supplies. He always has healing supplies. He was just hoping to save them for himself… Scar doesn’t need to know that, though.

“...Yea… I just- forgot.”

Digging into one of his trouser pockets, Grian pulls out a small box. He pulls open the latch, revealing a small collection of items inside. It’s nothing like the regeneration potions that the Vindicators are equipped with, but Scar recognises some small healing wipes and rolls of dressings.

Grian raises the wipes to clean up the now-dried blood. He inspects the wound— Scar’s lucky his blade didn’t go too deep or hit a bone. It just falls shy of being too wide to go without being stitched up. It still looks nasty though. Grian winces, looking up at Scar with an apologetic look. As gently as he can, he starts to clean the wound.

“Sorry about this… by the way.”

“It's alright.”

Grian carefully cleans and bandages Scar’s wound, while Scar sits and tries to think of jokes and bizarre questions to ask the avian. They never make it past his lips, though— he isn’t sure it’s a good idea when Grian is looking more and more guilty as he works, Grian’s gaze occasionally drifting to the scars covering the right side of his companion’s body. It isn’t hard for him to guess why they’re there. Scar doesn’t want to push Grian too hard on the subject in case he closes off from him again, and it’s awkward enough as it is.

Instead, Scar settles on a different, more genuine approach.

“You know, I forgive you.”

Grian's discomfort is immediate. Scar is close enough to watch as his feathers pin back against his head. The avian avoids Scar’s gaze, instead focusing solely on his wound. He knows exactly what he’s referring to.

“You shouldn't. That's not fair, I barely know you.” He frowns, his hands pausing over Scar’s shoulder.

“I know that! But, well, you looked a lot worse back then,” Scar explains, admiring the brightly coloured feathers covering Grian’s face and ears. He remembers how dull and grimy they looked two and a half years ago.

There’s a waiver in Grian's voice, a lump growing in his throat. “And I left you looking dead-”

“But it was an accident!” Scar corrects.

Grian takes in a sharp breath. Scar watches his tail flicking at his feet.

“What can I do to make you stop bringing it up?” Grian asks quietly, pushing unnecessarily hard against the dressing of Scar’s wound. Scar hisses, and Grian removes his hand immediately as if he had burnt himself.

With a muttered apology, Grian sighs, resigned, finally looking back up at Scar.

“...Okay. If we're gonna be travelling together, I'll make a deal with you.”

Scar sits up straighter, intrigued.

“For almost killing you… twice,” Grian elaborates, “I'll be indebted to you and will protect you until we escape this game.”

“Game?” Scar repeats, confused. Is this a game?

“Urh- trap-” Grian stutters, trying to cover up his choice of words. “I’ll help you get home, off this planet. It mostly- depends on-” he waffles on.

“You won't kill me?” Scar clarifies, briefly dropping the cheerful disposition he had so carefully applied.

“I mean… third time’s the charm-” Grian grins foolishly. He coughs out a laugh when Scar doesn't return the sentiment, instead pulling a concerned expression. “...No, I won't kill you, that was a joke.”

Scar mulls the idea over. He gasps at a realization. “So you’ll be my sidekick?”

“...No.”

“Driver? Sofa?” Scar asks, trying to think of the word.

“Chauffeur, and no.” Grian sits back. “As I was saying- you not bringing up that night again is also part of the deal.” His tone is serious, expression hardened with no hint of amusement. He stares right at Scar, his void-like eyes boring into him. Scar feels like he might get cursed by looking into his eyes for too long.

So naturally, he tests that.

“And you'll let me use your gun?”

“Nope.” Grian replies without hesitation.

“Oh, I mean gun sword.”

“You're pushing it.” Grian acknowledges, glaring at him.

“Okay. okay, deal.”

“Good.”

They shake on it. Long, metal talons meeting worn, gloved hands.

“Can I say one thing about that day?” Scar asks, pulling his hand back.

Grian stares at Scar.

“It's just a little thing.” Scar holds his fingers millimetres apart to emphasize his point.

Grian maintains his steady glare at him. Scar attempts to pull a sad puppy-dog face, earning himself a snort from the avian.

“Fine.” Grian groans, rolling his eyes.

“If it’s any help, I'm glad you look better than you did back then. Cooler, even. Not all beat up and soggy.” Scar says sweetly.

“That doesn't really help at all- for any reason-”

“No, I mean, like- your wings, they look all- fuller? Fluffy.” Scar adds, for lack of a better word. He watches as Grian’s face turns bright red. He doesn’t normally get described as ‘fluffy’.

“I- They're not pin feathers anymore- you mean.” He stammers, completely flustered.

“Oh- pin feathers?” Scar asks, curiously. He’s not too familiar with avian biology.

“It's like a waxy sheath that covers new feathers when they grow-” He cuts himself off, waving his hand as he stops the tangent.

“Anyway! We agreed not to bring it up!" He pouts, annoyed at how quickly he forgot his own rule.

Grian hastily finishes folding all the unused bandages back into their box, leaving a small pile of bloody gauze behind in the sand.

Scar stares at them, blinking slowly as he fends off his own adrenaline crash. Grian looks back at the Vindicator sympathetically.

“So, rest.” He offers.

“Rest.” Scar confirms absently.

“I'll be first watch.”

“You sure?” Scar looks over him. It had been Grian who first brought up the idea of resting, hours ago.

Grian just shrugs in response, turning away. “Yeah, I got this. You're the injured one.”

Not wanting to argue, Scar complies, shuffling down until he's lying across the sand. Grian quietly settles into a more comfortable position too, pulling his wings out in front of him. He runs his talons through the feathers, quickly preening the particularly dishevelled spots.

After a while, Grian peers back over at Scar, who is quietly snoring. He fell asleep remarkably quickly. His jacket is rolled up as a pillow— it doesn’t look particularly comfortable, but it’s not like they have any alternatives. Grian watches and waits, double-checking that Scar is fully asleep, slowly making noise with his feathered tail to test him.

Once he’s confident he won’t wake Scar, he turns his back to him and pulls back out his healing supplies.

Cautiously, he slips his sleeve over his shoulder, unbuckling his armour slightly. He gets as good of a look at his shoulder as he can. Blood clots the thick fabric, but thankfully, it must have helped to temporarily bandage the wound, preventing most of it from bleeding through. Not that it would have been easy to spot on the red fabric if it had. Grian winces as he tugs on the dried blood slightly. The wound looks exactly like Scar’s, albeit with more congealed blood. It was a good idea to get a closer look at Scar's injury, he thinks. This confirms his suspicions.

He sighs, reaching for the wipes and dressing, tending to his own hidden wounds until he can clip his armour back in place, the bandages hidden underneath. He frequently checks Scar’s status, who lies completely still, fast asleep.

He leans back against the walls of the cavern, wrapping his wings around himself for comfort. It’s not freezing temperatures, but the air has definitely cooled significantly since the sun dipped below the horizon. Even now the sky refuses to turn fully black, a soft orange glow shining from where the sun had disappeared, basking the world in a reddish hue.

His gaze falls on the sad, broken remains of the phantoms from earlier. He’s got a feeling they’re not going to be the only challenge put in place for them here. He’ll wake Scar up in an hour or so, so he can get his own opportunity to sleep through the rest of this short night.

For now, he sits, and watches.

#stareater au #life series au #grian #gtwscar #desertduo #cw violence #cw injury #cw blood #trafficblr

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genshinluvr · 2 years ago

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Burning Desire 2 [Scaramouche's Route]

Pairings: Various Genshin Men x Isekai'd!Reader, Scaramouche x Isekai'd!Reader

Summary: After inhaling a large amount of aphrodisiac, you’re now struggling to hold yourself together. You're burning with desire and desperate to extinguish the fiery pit in your stomach. Still, you're hesitant about having one of your boyfriends help you with your problem. Who knew that the first person to “help” you with your problem would only make it worse for you by teasing you and calling you names.

Note: Before you read Scaramouche's route, I want to clarify that because Burning Desire is all pure smut (aside from the first part before the smut routes), the routes/chapters will be shorter than Crave. Crave has its own plot, whereas Burning Desire is a smut-fic where readers make the decision on who's route is going to be next after the first route. Crave will be way longer because every character/group will have their own plot compared to Burning Desire. This applies to all characters, not specific characters. I highly recommend reading the first part of Burning Desire (linked down below) first before reading the routes, but that is up to you! As previously stated in my previous smut-fics, I tried to keep the story as gender-neutral as possible. All of my smuts do lean towards female!reader/AFAB!reader with gender-neutral pronouns. As usual, minors DO NOT INTERACT! I don't post anywhere else but on Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and on AO3 (Aaliah_exo).

Warnings: Horribly written smut [as per usual], aphrodisiac, spitting, hair pulling, somewhat brat taming, spanking, doggy style, mating press, failed attempts of a dom!reader in one part, reader calls Scaramouche a good boy, oral (reader receiving), fingering, biting

Word Count: 5.5k

Burning Desire "chapters"/routes: [1], [2], [3], [4]

The door flies open, and Scaramouche stands at the doorway, smirking at you. You feel your heart drop in your chest. It’s not like you’re unhappy to see him. You know Scaramouche is going to enjoy teasing you until you break.

“Aw, look at you! So desperate and needy for someone to touch you,” You hear a familiar voice coo mockingly.

The throbbing between your legs continues to rage while you huff and cross your arms over your chest. Scaramouche steps into your room and slams the door behind him and in everyone’s faces.

You and Scaramouche hear Itto ask, “Did he just slam the door in our faces?”

“What? You want to watch Scaramouche and [Y/N] fuck each other’s brains out? Cause I don’t!” Childe huffs from behind the door.

“Let’s give them some privacy. It would be weird for us to hang around while Scaramouche tries to help [Y/N].... relieve their frustrations,” Tighnari clears his throat.

The twenty-three men grumble at Tighnari’s suggestion. Their footsteps slowly fade away, leaving you and Scaramouche in complete silence. You and Scaramouche stare at each other in silence, tension hanging above the two of you like the stars and moon. Scaramouche chuckles, walking toward you while you watch him warily. Scaramouche stops in front of you, squats to your eye level, tilts his head to the side and tips his hat back.

A smirk appears on Scaramouche’s face. You look like a mess. Your pupils are blown wide, your skin is covered in a thin layer of sweat, and your chest is heaving with every heavy breath you take. You look so pathetic, so helpless, and so so cute. Scaramouche nearly burst out laughing just at the mere sight of your desperation. Scaramouche cups your face in his hands and squish your cheeks together, making your lips pucker.

Scaramouche leans in close to your face. “Do you know how pathetic you look right now?” Scaramouche whispers, his breath fanning your face.

You wince and pull your head out from his grasp, mentally cursing to yourself. If the damn aphrodisiac wasn’t affecting you this way, you would’ve wiped that shit-eating grin off his face. Scaramouche lets out a breathy chuckle and pulls away from you. Scaramouche takes his hat off and puts them on the edge of your bed, running his hands through his indigo hair while eyeing you with his indigo eyes.

You gulp and close your eyes, shaking your head. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Scaramouche. I can wait for the aphrodisiac to wear off,” you whisper.

Scaramouche lets out a loud “ha!” before standing up and brushing his clothes. “Don’t lie to me, now. I can see the burning desire and desperation in your eyes. Either let me help you with your problem or continue to suffer. Your choice!”

The aching between your legs continues to grow. Your body feels like it’s engulfed in flames. You’re so hot that you’re starting to drip in sweat. You push yourself off the ground, standing up. Your legs are shaking, and you barely have the energy to stand. So, you collapse on your bed beside Scaramouche’s hat, staring at the Inazuman man, your eyes going out of focus for a mere second.

Scaramouche watches the bead of sweat drip from your chin, landing on your white t-shirt. Your white is practically see-through because of the amount of sweat your shirt is soaking up. He can see the outlines of your breasts through the material and the areolas of your nipples behind the fabric your nipples are poking from behind.

You squeeze your thighs together tightly, hoping it’ll suppress the throbbing between your legs. Scaramouche huffs with amusement and walks toward the bed. Scaramouche stands at the end of your bed, staring you down. You wipe the sweat off your face with the back of your hand, looking away from Scaramouche.

“Scaramouche, please….” you whisper, body shaking with intense need.

Scaramouche leans forward, cupping his ear with his hand. “What was that? I didn’t hear you. Can you say that louder?” Scaramouche asks, laughing to himself.

You scowl at Scaramouche and give him the middle finger. Scaramouche snorts, leaning against your bed. Even when you desperately want to get rid of the burning need between your legs, you can’t stand Scaramouche and his shit-eating grin. As much as you want to shut him up, you’ve been immobilized by the aphrodisiac.

Scaramouche shakes his head, clicking his tongue. “That’s not nice of you to treat me that way. Especially when I volunteered to help you with your,” Scaramouche trails off, grabs hold of your ankles, and pulls you toward the edge of the bed, “problem.”

Scaramouche smirks and cages you against your bed with his arms beside your head with one knee on your bed. Scaramouche leans down until his forehead is pressing against yours. The two of you look into each other’s eyes, not saying a word. Your heart is drumming against your chest. You involuntarily breathe in Scaramouche’s scent, feeling yourself melt against your bed. Scaramouche smirks, cups your jaws in his hands, tilt your head back, and press his lips against the side of your neck.

You gasp, feeling Scaramouche’s soft, warm lips pressing up against the base of your neck. Scaramouche tangles his hands in your hair, peppering kisses up and down your neck, occasionally sucking on your neck. You close your eyes, bite your quivering lips, clutching onto his shirt tightly. You can feel Scaramouche smirk against your neck. He kneels on the bed above you, continuing to do what he’s doing.

He smells so intoxicating that your mouth nearly waters when you breathe in his shampoo. Every touch and squeeze light flames upon your heated skin. Scaramouche trails his lips down further on your neck, reaching your collarbone. You suck in a deep breath and choke on your breath when Scaramouche bites on your collarbone.

“Ah! Scaramouche!” You whimper, your chest pressing up against his when you arch your back.

Scaramouche unlatches his lips from your collarbone and smirks down at you. You stare up at Scaramoche in a lustful daze, your mouth slightly agape, your tongue peeking out from your lips. Scaramouche sticks his thumb into your mouth, catching you by surprise. You look at Scaramouche with wide eyes, unsure of what to do other than to suck on his thumb.

“You filthy little thing,” Scaramouche teases, leaning down to kiss and suck your jaws. “Such a needy, filthy slut,” Scaramouche laughs, pressing his thumb on your tongue.

You narrow your eyes in response and lightly bite down on his thumb. Scaramouche pauses and pulls away from you, staring at you blankly before taking his thumb out from your mouth. You and Scaramouche stare at one another. The corner of your lips quirks up while he narrows his eyes at you and pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue.

“You know….” Scaramouche trails off, his hands sliding up to your hair. “For someone as needy as you, you sure act like a brat.” Scaramouche hisses, tangling his fingers beneath your hair and tugging on it, pulling your head back with a forceful tug.

You gasp at the feeling. “Oh, fuck,” you moan.

Scaramouche leans into your ear. “If you continue to act like a brat, then I’m going to treat you like one, do you understand?” Scaramouche whispers, biting on your earlobe.

You look at Scaramouche from the corner of your eyes, batting your eyelashes. “Who? Me? Acting like a brat? I would never!” You say, feigning innocence.

Scaramouche narrows his eyes and pushes you back against your bed. You let out an ‘oof’ when you land on your back. You prop yourself up with your arms and watch Scaramouche hop off your bed and kneel in front of where you’re lying. Scaramouche eyes your sleep shorts, shaking his head and “tsking” softly as if he’s scolding you.

Scaramouche drags out a sigh, his indigo eyes flickering up to you. “Soaked through your pants, I see. That’s a shame,” Scaramouche mocks.

He grabs the band of your sleep shorts before ghosting his fingers over the prominent wet patch on your shorts. You jolt when you feel Scaramouche press the pad of his thumb against the damp patch. You whimper and attempt to grab his hand, only for him to slap your hand away.

Scaramouche grabs your shorts bands and tugs at them until your shorts are off, leaving you only in your panties.

You shiver and attempt to cover yourself. Scaramouche grabs both your wrists and pins them to your stomach with one hand while lightly rubbing the damp patch on your panties. Scaramouche licks his lips and touches the small bump beneath your panties. You jolt again when you feel Scaramouche touch your engorged bundle of nerves through the fabrics of your panties.

“And you said you didn’t want my help,” Scaramouche snorts, shaking his head.

You huff and look away, face turning hot. “I didn’t. I would rather wait for the aphrodisiac to wear off,” you mutter.

Scaramouche looks at you with amusement. “Oh? Is that so?” Scaramouche asks, slipping his fingers underneath the band of your panties. “It’s okay to feel this way. It’s not like you can control it anyway.”

Your face continues to feel hot. Scaramouche loops his index fingers around the side of your underwear and pulls your panties off. You nearly hiss when cool air hits your damp core and try to close your legs, but Scaramouche slaps the inside of your thigh. You yelp and rub the tender area with the tip of your fingers.

Scaramouche tosses your panties behind him and releases your hands from his grip. Scaramouche grabs your hips and pulls you to the edge of the bed until your ass is hanging off the edge of the bed.

“You said you didn’t want me to help you, but you’re so wet you’re practically dripping,” Scaramouche says, swiping his fingers up through the wetness between your folds.

You grumble and cover your face with your hands. “Stop trying to humiliate me!” You grumble.

He rolls his eyes and licks his fingers. “I’m not. Quit whining.” Scaramouche snorts.

You open your mouth to retort but are cut short when Scaramouche latches his mouth onto your dripping wet heat. Your back arches and your legs are spread apart on the bed, giving Scaramouche full access to your dripping core.

Scaramouche has an iron grip on your thighs, leaving finger marks on your thighs. Scaramouche swirls and swipes his tongue on your core while you writhe beneath him. The sound of slurping and your whimpers fill the once-silent air in your room. Scaramouche throws one of your legs over his shoulders, bringing you closer to him. Scaramouche’s teeth scrape against your swollen bundle of nerves, making you gasp and tense in his grasp.

You reach forward and grab Scaramouche’s indigo hair, tangling your fingers in his soft hair. You grit your teeth, feeling your eyes roll to the back of your head the more Scaramouche laps at your throbbing core.

You let out a whine. “Scaramouche! Just fuck me already, dammit!” You pull at his hair.

Scaramouche scowls at you and pulls away, licking your juices off his face before slapping your throbbing core. You hiss and release his hair, feeling your entrance clench over nothing. Scaramouche stands and begins to slowly strip his clothes off in front of you.

You watch the fabrics and small accessories pool around him on the ground. Scaramouche is left in his boxers before he steps toward the bed. Scaramouche smirks when you give him a questioning look. Scaramouche flips you over on your stomach and forces you to get on all fours.

SMACK!

“Ow! Scaramouche! What was that for!?” You shriek, placing your hand over the area where Scaramouche slapped you.

Scaramouche doesn’t answer your question. Instead, he continues to spank your ass while you’re writing and trying to get away. After what felt like hours, Scaramouche finally stops slapping your ass. You lay on the bed, whimpering and clutching your possibly swollen asscheeks. You’re sure Scaramouche left hand prints on your ass. Dear archons, your ass is stinging so much from the number of slaps Scaramouche had given your butt cheeks. Damn him and that shit-eating grin on his face.

Scaramouche flips you over on your back, caging you in his arms. Scaramouche crashes his lips against yours. Your and his teeth clash against each other while he tangles his fingers in your hair, pushing your legs apart. You subconsciously spread your legs, intertwining your fingers in his hair. Scaramouche takes the opportunity to slip two fingers into your wet heat, catching you off guard.

You let out a choked gasp and broke the kiss between you and Scaramouche. You grip both of Scaramouche’s biceps, digging your nails into his arms. You groan and tense up the deeper Scaramouche’s fingers go into you. Scaramouche continues to insert his index and middle finger inside of you until he’s knuckles deep inside your entrance.

Your eyebrows are furrowing, your mouth agape in an ‘o,’ eyes bleary with lust. Scaramouche smirks and slowly pulls his fingers out before slamming them back inside. Your entire body tenses up, and a mix of moans and whines escapes from you. Scaramouche uses his thumb and digs the nail into your bundle of nerves. You grit your teeth, gripping your bedsheets with tight fists.

“Why can’t you just fuck me already instead of tormenting me?” You ask through clenched jaws.

Scaramouche feigns innocence. “Because it’s fun seeing you writhe beneath me, beg me to fuck your brains out, and cry out my name until you become frustrated,” Scaramouche replies.

“Scaramouche, I swear, if you don’t fuck me right now, I’m going to find someone else to do it instead,” you hiss, attempting to sit up.

Scaramouche clicks his tongue and pulls his fingers out from your core, making you tense up momentarily. Scaramouche shoves his index and middle finger into your mouth, nearly choking you.

“Suck.”

You narrow your eyes at Scaramouche. As much as you want to bite his fingers out of spite, you just want him to fuck you already until the firey pit in your stomach is gone. So, you complied and began to suck and lick his pointer and middle fingers, tasting your juices that coated his fingers.

Scaramouche shoves his fingers farther back, the tips of his fingers touching the back of your throat. You gag around his fingers, your eyes watered, and you glare at him through the tears in your eyes. Scaramouche snickers and pulls his fingers out of your mouth.

“What? Don’t give me that look! You should be grateful that I’m going to be fucking you until you can barely walk,” Scaramouche says nonchalantly.

You lie on your back and close your eyes, wiping the stray tears that made their way down your cheeks. You hear clothes rustling and falling to the ground. Damn him, and damn him for being the first one to volunteer to help you with your problem. Why couldn’t it be Heizou instead? At least Heizou wouldn’t be teasing the hell out of you until you break. Actually… Heizou would probably do the same, but he would be more gentle, unlike the indigo-haired male standing before you.

You’re pulled out from your thoughts when Scaramouche is now looming over you, one arm propping himself up beside your head. You watch Scaramouche grab his erect cock with the other hand. Scaramouche pumps his cock a few times with his fist and taps the mushroom tip of his cock against your folds after pushing your legs apart with his knees. You bite your lips with anticipation, letting out a pathetic whimper when Scaramouche rubs his cock up and down your spread legs.

You grit your teeth and dig your nails into the palm of your hands, trying your best to be patient when you know your patience is about to snap at any moment. Scaramouche lines the bulbous tip of his cock in front of your entrance and looks at you through his lashes. Scaramouche teases your entrance by rubbing his dick up and down your folds, lightly brushing against your bundle of nerves.

You whine and lightly pound your fist against his chest. “Scaramouche! Please, just fuck me already! I can’t wait any longer!” You whine.

Scaramouche pushes himself off of you and grips your neck with one hand while the other remains on his hardened cock. Without warning, Scaramouche shoves his cock inside of your awaiting, dripping heat. You gasp and feel your entrance tighten around Scaramouche’s cock. You wrap your legs around Scaramouche’s waist, thighs clenching while he slams the rest of his cock inside of your throbbing entrance.

Scaramouche clenches his jaws. “Relax, will you?” Scaramouche grunts, grabbing the plush of your thighs and shoving them apart before he buries his dick to the hilt.

You whimper and wrap your arms over his shoulders, clawing at his back. “I’m trying! It hurts!” You whine while digging your nails deep into his back.

“It’ll only hurt more if you continue to tense up like this!” Scaramouche growls, pressing his hips against yours and staying still.

You pant, tilting your head back against your pillow, feeling your eyes roll to the back of your head. Your thighs are beginning to feel sore, but it doesn’t hurt as much as your entrance does. You feel so full, so, so full. Scaramouche blindly reaches for your legs and pushes them up against your chest, folding you in half.

You unintentionally let out a loud moan, feeling the tip of his cock touching the deepest part of your insides. Scaramouche lays on top of you, his arms caging you between his body and your bed. Scaramouche grabs your jaws and forces you to open your mouth. You look at Scaramouche through the lustful haze, your mouth wide open. Scaramouche spits into your mouth, catching you off guard.

He closes your mouth and thrusts forward. “Swallow,” Scaramouche demands.

You swallow Scaramouche’s saliva and open your mouth to show him. Scaramouche smirks and tangles his fingers in your hair before pressing his lips against yours. You slide your left hand up his back and to the back of his head, gripping his indigo hair while your right-hand reaches down and grabs him by the ass.

Scaramouche jolts, making his cock prod your cervix. Scaramouche breaks the kiss and looks down at you with an eyebrow raised. You bite your lips and stare at him, not saying anything. You pull him down and kiss his swollen lips again, lightly biting his lips and rolling your hips against his, sending pleasurable jolts down your and Scaramouche’s spine.

Scaramouche slowly pulls his cock out from your heat, leaving only the tip of his dick inside you. Archons, you’re so wet. Scaramouche watches your juices slowly trail down your ass cheeks, his cock’s wet from your juice. Without warning, Scaramouche slams his cock back inside your hole. Your velvety walls clenched around his cock while you cried out with pleasure.

You didn’t know why you expected Scaramouche to start thrusting into you slowly and letting you adjust to his size. Scaramouche hammers his cock in and out of you, making sure to hit your cervix over and over with every thrust.

“Slow down!” You squeal, your legs flailing over your head while Scaramouche continues to ram his cock in and out of you.

Scaramouche ignores your pleas, continuously ramming his dick into your wet heat. The sound of skin slapping, squelching, moans, whimpers, and growls fills your bedroom. You squeeze your eyes shut out of embarrassment and bury your face into Scaramouche’s chest. Scaramouche suddenly pulls his cock out from your entrance. You whine in protest, blindly reaching for his cock. Scaramouche slaps your hand away, flips you over on your stomach, and puts you on all fours. He makes you arch your back and press your head against your pillow before landing a sharp slap on your ass cheeks.

Your squeal was cut short when Scaramouche lined his cock up against your dripping entrance. Scaramouche slams his dick into you, making you choke on your squeals. Scaramouche presses his chest against your back, reaching forward and squeezing your chest with both hands while pressing his hips firmly against your ass. You grab a fistful of your bedsheets while wrapping your right arm around your pillow, biting down on your pillow to muffle your moans.

“Taking my cock so well, like the slut you are,” Scaramouche chuckles, biting down on your shoulder.

You grunt when Scaramouche grinds his hips against yours, coating his pubic hair with your juices. You reach for Scaramouche’s hand, intertwining your fingers with his while your other hand continues to hold the bedsheets with a tight fist. Scaramouche chuckles, releasing your shoulder and burying his face into your neck.

Scaramouche pants against your ears, and his soft grunts and sighs fill your ears. Dear archons, you hate to admit that you love the sound of him sighing and grunting into your ears. Scaramouche latches his lips on your neck, nibbling on them while pistoning his cock in and out at a steady pace. You tilt your head back, resting your head on Scaramouche’s shoulders while he continues to ram his painfully erect cock in and out of you repeatedly. Your hands fly to Scaramouche’s hands and dig your nails into his arms. The sound of Scaramouche’s pants drowns out the sounds of your desperate moans and squeals.

Scaramouche presses his lips against your ears. “Where’s that attitude of yours, huh?” Scaramouche asks, breathing heavily into your ears. “Where.” Thrust. “Is.” Thrust. “It?”

You scowl and shove him off you, his dick pulling out from your entrance. Scaramouche lands on his elbows and glares at you with lust clouding his vision. You get off your bed and huff, crossing your arms over your chest. You turn around and begin walking to your bedroom door without sparing Scaramouche a second glance.

Scaramouche calls out from behind you, “Where do you think you’re going?!”

You huff loudly and look over your shoulders. “Since you want to act so cocky, I’ll find someone else to satisfy me,” you said.

“Hey! Get your ass back here or else—”

“Or else what? If you want to fuck me so badly, why don’t you beg for it, hm?” You smirk.

Scaramouche growls. “I’m the one that’s supposed to be fucking your brains out and helping you with that problem of yours. You’re the one that inhaled that stupid aphrodisiac, not me!” Scaramouche glowers, getting off your bed and walking toward you.

You chuckle and shake your head, watching the indigo-haired man approach you. You have yet to cum, and yet you’re playing fire with fire. He can ditch you all you want and leave you hanging high and dry, craving for release, but you have plenty of options other than the man standing before you. Scaramouche wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you to his chest. You try to act nonchalant, but feeling Scaramouche’s erect cock pressing against your stomach is making you flustered.

Scaramouche grabs your chin and tilts your head up to look at him. You scoff softly, turn your head to the side and gnaw on the inside of your cheek. Archons, you just want him to fuck the aphrodisiac out of you, but knowing Scaramouche, he’s going to make it hell for you. And he kind of did, even though he fucked you pretty well.

“I don’t know. You’ve been so mean to me this entire time! Why should I let you continue to bury your dick inside me, hm?” You ask, grabbing his red cock and gently squeezing and pumping them firmly.

Scaramouche clenches his jaws, his eyes nearly rolling to the back of his head when you squeeze and rub the bulbous tip of his cock. Scaramouche rests his head on your shoulder, burying his face into your neck, breathing in your scent.

“Please,” Scaramouche says through clenched teeth. “Please let me fuck you.”

You hum to yourself, taking your hand off his throbbing member. “Alright, I’ll let you fuck me, only because you said please like a good boy,” you tease, squeezing his cheeks.

Scaramouche huffs and grabs your wrist and pulls you back to your bed. Scaramouche lays on your bed, yanking you on top of him. You straddle his hips and grab his red dick, lining it up to your entrance.

Scaramouche squeezes your hips with anticipation; his cheeks are almost as red as the tip of his cock. You giggle to yourself and slowly sink down on his aching cock. Your jaws drop, letting out a shaky sigh as you continue to sink further down on Scaramouche’s dick. Once Scaramouche is fully sheathed into your entrance, you grab your bed frame and start bouncing on his cock and grinding your swollen bundle of nerves against Scaramouche’s pubic bone. Scaramouche latches his mouth on one of your nipples and begins to suck, lick and lightly bite them while you’re on top of him, riding his cock like a desperate cock hungry whore that you are.

You bite down on your lips to keep your moans to a minimum. The sound of your hole squelching each time your thighs meet Scaramouche’s thighs is all you can hear other than your breathy moans and Scaramouche sucking on your nipples. Scaramouche places both his hands on the globes of your ass, squeezing your butt cheeks, occasionally slapping them while forcing you up and down on his painfully hard cock.

Scaramouche releases your nipple. “You’re a filthy slut, you know that, right?” Scaramouche pants. “Look at you, riding my cock like a cock hungry whore.” He laughs.

You reach for Scaramouche’s hair, grab it and tilt his head back. “You’re a shithead, you know that, right?” You ask, slamming your hips down on his cock.

You hold back a moan when Scaramouche’s mushroom tip kisses your cervix. Scaramouche smirks at you, his lips quivering from the pleasure. Scaramouche opens his mouth to retort, but you press your lips against his lips to shut him up. Scaramouche releases one ass cheek and reaches in front to pinch and squeeze your throbbing bundle of nerves. You bite down on Scaramouche’s lips, nearly collapsing on him.

He takes that as an opportunity to flip you over on your back, hammering his cock into you in a frenzy. You grunt and wrap your legs tightly around his slim waist, dragging your nails down his back. Scaramouche presses his hips hard against yours that your eyes nearly pop out of your skull when the bulbous tip of his cock slams against your cervix. You roll your hips and ground your hips against his pubic bone.

Your back arches, your head falls back on your bed, and you let out a string of moans. You feel a familiar tightness in your lower abdomen as he continues to force his cock in and out of your wet heat. You look down to where you and Scaramouche are connected, only to see your stomach bulging every time Scaramouche slams his cock back into your sopping wet heat. Your tongue lolls out of your mouth, saliva dripping down the side of your mouth while Scaramouche continues to shove his cock into you.

Scaramouche snorts. “You look stupid, you know that?” Scaramouche snickers, pressing his hips against yours.

“I’m about to cum,” You whisper breathlessly.

Scaramouche raises his eyebrows at you. “Then cum for me, you filthy slut. Cum all over my cock and scream my name so the others can know who’s the one that’s fucking your brains out,” Scaramouche demands, pulling your hair back and pistoning his cock into you.

While Scaramouche is slamming his hips against yours, you writhe beneath him. Your jaws are agape, letting out silent screams. Scaramouche grabs a handful of your chest and kneads at them, pinching your nipples while squeezing your breast. You close your eyes tightly, feeling the forming knot in your lower abdomen begin to feel even tighter.

You hiss when Scaramouche grazes your nipple with his nail. You grab his wrist and dig your nails into his wrist, fueling Scaramouche’s thrusts. While pounding into your sopping-wet entrance, Scaramouche feels his impending orgasm. Scaramouche leans over you, grabs the edge of the mattress, and plunges his cock into you in a frenzy, chasing his release.

It happened so fast. You didn’t think the tight knot in your lower abdomen would snap so quickly the more the mushroom tip of Scaramouche’s cock kissed your cervix. The feeling of his cock sliding and rubbing against the walls of your entrance made you quiver and your legs tremble. Scaramouche bites down on your shoulders and shoots thick ropes of cum deep inside your quivering hole when he feels you clamping down hard on his cock and cumming around him.

You go limp on your bed and grunt softly when Scaramouche collapses on top of you. Scaramouche lets out a breathy chuckle before rolling off to the side while keeping his cock inside you, plugging his and your cum inside your sullied hole. You don’t know how long you and Scaramouche had gone at it, but you can still feel the fiery pit raging in the pit of your stomach. You and Scaramouche groan when he pulls his softened cock from inside you. You feel his and your cum oozing out from your hole.

Scaramouche turns his head to look at you. “You’re quite needy, did you know that?” Scaramouche asks.

You scoff and roll your eyes at him, slapping his chest weakly. “Oh, please. As if you weren’t as needy as I was,” you grumble.

Scaramouche gulps a mouthful of air and props himself up. “Is it still in your system?” Scaramouche asks, collapsing back on your bed and closing his eyes.

You stare at him, watching his bare chest rise up and down from the rigorous activity. You pursed your lips, unsure of how to answer. If you were to tell him that the feeling of need and desire is still present, would he continue to assist you on your issue, or would he switch out with one of the other twenty-four men that are left?

You gnaw on your bottom lip and slowly nod. “Yeah, it’s still in my system, unfortunately. I can still feel it, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was before you, well, railed me into oblivion,” you reply.

Scaramouche sighs in defeat and closes his eyes, running his hands through his hair. “Dammit. Not only that, but you inhaled large amounts of that aphrodisiac as well. It’ll be in your system for who knows how long.”

“Unfortunately,” you mutter.

Scaramouche lies beside you and wraps his arms around your bare torso, resting his chin on top of your head and closing his eyes. You reach to grab the blanket at the edge of your bed when you and Scaramouche hear a knock at your door.

“Are you two finished?” Albedo asks behind the closed door.

You huff and pull the blanket over your and Scaramouche’s naked bodies. “Yeah, we’re finished,” you answer.

“Is the aphrodisiac out of your system now? How are you feeling?” Baizhu’s voice is muffled from behind the door.

You shake your head, knowing the others can’t see it. You’re not sure how long aphrodisiacs remain in the human body once it’s ingested or inhaled. All you know is that you’re still horny, probably not as much as you were before Scaramouche railed you, but you’re still horny, and you can feel it. The fiery pit in your lower stomach has yet to be extinguished, and you’re not sure how many rounds you’ll have to go through for the aphrodisiac to wear off.

You sigh shakily and reply, “It’s still in my system. I don’t know how much longer it’ll remain in my system for, Baizhu. It’s not nearly as bad as it was, and I’m still coherent, but….” you trailed off, closing your eyes.

“But….” Xiao asks.

You can almost hear him raise his eyebrows. Knowing Xiao, he’s standing in front of your closed bedroom door with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for you to reply. You wouldn’t be surprised if the others were also standing in front of your door.

You look at Scaramouche, who sits up and rubs his eyes. “Might as well send in the next person. But let me remind you that none of you will fuck [Y/N] nearly as good as I did,” Scaramouche says proudly.

Scarmaouhce puts on his clothes while you debate whether you should put your clothes on and clean yourself up or let the next person have their way with you as you are now. You get up from your bed and walk to your bathroom to quickly clean up and use the bathroom. After a few minutes of cleaning yourself up and using the bathroom, you step out of your bathroom. Scaramouche gives you a quick hug and kisses on your forehead before exiting your bedroom. Before the door fully closed behind Scaramouche, a hand grabbed at the wooden door to prevent it from closing.

Note: I have no idea how to feel about this Scaramouche smut I wrote... let me know what you think because I'm always feeling iffy about every smuts I write and post on Tumblr and AO3. Ready for the second phase for the next route? Since Scaramouche's route has been written and posted, he is no longer part of the future options for Burning Desire. I wonder who's going to be the next route 🤔 Vote for the second route/third "chapter" [HERE]! As for taglist, Burning Desire will have its own taglist! Therefore, if you want to be tagged for the Burning Desire smut fics, click [HERE] for the taglist form! Please make sure to read the instructions carefully, or else I won't be able to tag you in future Burning Desire fics 🥹 Anyway, to my new and/or returning readers, please keep in mind that I ONLY post on my Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and my AO3 (Aaliah_exo)! Nowhere else except Tumblr and AO3!

Taglist for Burning Desire: [None currently, will add people once people start submitting their forms ^^]

Read more of my works on my Masterlist | Maybe support me by tipping me on Ko-Fi or by reblogging my fanfics! ^^ I will also be posting exclusive fanfics on Ko-Fi as well very soon! I might post all of my stories on there too, but who knows. You can also tip me on Tumblr if you'd like as a way to show support! ^^

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stellar-solar-flare · 2 months ago

Text

Volatile | Chapter 2/3 | Steve Rogers x Reader

Explicit - 18+ only - Minors DNI.

Steve Rogers returns from a mission only to be immediately alerted about a medical emergency: you, the Avengers Initiative's leading science expert, have been hit by a potent, unknown aphrodisiac on your own mission. Pressed for time and out of options, he has to, together with the AI's medical department, figure out a solution.

Mutual pining, smut with feelings, eventual happy ending.

Content Warnings: explicit sexual content, sex pollen, non-consensual exposal to sex pollen, dubious consent because Reader is under the influence of an aphrodisiac (but all sex is very much mutually wanted), protective & possessive Steve Rogers, Captain kink, praise kink, very light dom/sub elements, dirty talk, pet names, thigh riding, finger sucking, mention of non-con.

Reader specifics: She/her. Works as a science specialist in AI under codename Dr. Chiral for her chemistry proficiency. Six times PhD, an Avenger. Late twenties, no description of appearance given.

Alternate Universe: The Avengers Initiative (AI) continued SHIELD's work after its collapse to corruption, with Steve as the Head Strategist and Tony as the Director. The Avengers are living together in the Tower - Bucky has healed, and Civil War never happened because Tony and Steve worked through their differences like adults.

I do not own anything Marvel related. This is an unofficial fan work. No copyright infringement intended. This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

FIC MASTERLIST | AUTHOR MASTERLIST | AO3

<< Previous chapter

Chapter 2: Flammable

Chapter notes: This is just smut with some feelings thrown in. Read the content warnings before divign in, please, and do not proceed if any of that isn't for you.

6,198 words.

As Steve stepped through the airlock into the dim-lit containment room, you untangled yourself from the tangled sheets on the king size bed. The air condition was blasting but despite that, the only thing you had on was a white, thin t-shirt type hospital gown that was not doing a damn thing to hide your peaking nipples. It fell onto your mid-thigh, and while under some other circumstances, it might’ve been reasonably modest, right now it clung onto your damp skin tighter than a bathing suit as you moved to sit on your knees on the bed. There was a feverish glaze clouding your eyes as Steve locked the airlock door behind himself. Other than the bed and a small desk with a chair, there was a table loaded with water bottles and some fruit and protein bars you had obviously not even touched. The muted color scheme – a neutral combination of blues, greys and whites made the room feel like a hotel room or a set in a movie. The bed you sat on was a small ocean of tangled satin sheets, and the thought of you rolling in those in feverish wanton need…

“Steve,” you said, your throat dry.

His eyes raked over you, ever so slowly, and as he did, he saw your breath quicken. You didn’t seem to really believe that he was there. Maybe you had fantasized about this before he had stepped in. Maybe you had fantasized about him. Even with everything you’d said on the tape, all the things you wanted him to do to you that were now playing on repeat in his head, he just wasn’t quite sure he could believe that it wasn’t just the aphrodisiac talking.

But whether you wanted him for anything beyond this room or for just this moment, it was clear you trusted him. You trusted him to help you out in this situation, with something this incredibly intimate and volatile and vulnerable, and there was no force in the universe that would’ve made him deny you. Especially when that meant that he could touch you. There was no other reasonable solution to this. That choice had been taken away from him, and that meant he could let go. And maybe… Just maybe…

I was too much of a coward to tell you in Verona. That made two of you. And this certainly wasn’t the way he had envisioned this going down but he would be lying if he said that whatever that was coming was a task he was reluctant to take on. His eyes stayed on your naked, glistening thighs like he’d been possessed. The room reeked of you, the pheromones of your arousal whispering sweet invitation to him, and Steve gathered every last shred of his self-control as he reached for a water bottle on the table with one hand and put the shield down to lean against the wall with the other.

“Hey, Ace,” Steve whispered. “You asked for me.”

You blinked at the sound of his voice and scooted to the edge of the bed, standing up. It could’ve been a hallucination conjured up by your feverish brain. And you could’ve hallucinated a lot worse than Steve stepping through the airlock of the room in the stealth suit of all things. But his voice sounded familiar – it echoed through your hazed state like a beacon in the night. You had been aching for him, for his touch, every last bit of your soul and body calling out for him. And he had heard. He had come to you.

“Are you here?” you whispered back, trying to make sense of it.

He hadn’t been there in the lab. There had been only Bucky, and Sam, and both had smelled wrong. Both had been wrong. You wanted just Steve; you had always wanted just him. Verona. Moonlight. Words that seemed to have no bearing to anything that was happening now when the only thing your throbbing blood was saying was Steve. You weren’t sure if you had been waiting for him for hours or for days or for centuries or for seconds, lying on the bed and floating in the half-delusional myriad of fantasies, touching yourself to the images of him but feeling no relief to the burning.

“I am, doll,” Steve said. “I’m yours if you want me. And only if you want me. The second you tell me to stop, I will.”

No. You absolutely weren’t going to do that. No chance in hell, when you finally had him.

Even in the small room, walking up to him seemed to take an eternity. His scent was faintly of musk and leather, mixed with something and something that might’ve been blood. It blended seamlessly into the deep, masculine note of the sandalwood-based cologne he always wore, blended with cedar and cypress and rosewood; a fresh forest smell that made your mouth water. In stealth suit, fresh from a mission. Shoulders accentuated by the uniform cut, wide chest above a flat stomach, strong thighs, large hands. He was the epitome of the masculine V shape, and he was yours. In the stealth suit.

By the time you reached him, you were barely able to hold yourself upright on your shaking legs. But Steve would’ve never let you fall. Before your legs could give underneath you, his free arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you close to rest against his body. The pleasantly cool, smooth Kevlar-like material of his suit felt like heaven against your body as you reached up to wrap your arms around his neck. He was looking at you, studying the fever burning in your eyes as you shivered upon the contact. Without letting go of you, he opened the water bottle.

“I need you to drink,” he murmured. “Your vitals said you’re dehydrated. You’ll need your strength.”

Obediently, you turned your head to the side and allowed him to lift the bottle to your lips. You hadn’t felt thirsty until you actually tasted the cool water Steve carefully held for you, but after the first sip, you greedily chugged the whole bottle. Steve’s eyes stayed fixated on your lips as you did, and he didn’t turn his gaze even as he put the empty bottle on the table and grabbed another.

“Still thirsty?” he asked.

The whole length of your body was pressed against his, and his thigh had slipped between yours to stabilize you further. Even through the fabric, he could feel against his palm how hot your skin was. You had come to him, out of your free will – as free as it could be under the influence of the aphrodisiac – and you were there, now, rising to your tiptoes and pressing your face against the crook of his neck before drawing a deep breath in. Just the scent and the presence of him seemed to calm you down, and maybe that meant he shouldn’t –

Your tongue licked a long, languid stripe over the side of Steve’s neck, tasting the salt of his skin and the musk that was simply Steve. As you did, your hips – the bare, soaking wet, burning apex of your thighs – rolled against his thigh, and the high whimper that left your mouth made every single thought empty from his head. He barely registered the drizzle of cool water that hit his cheek as the water bottle he had been holding had exploded in his flexing hand. As you lifted your head to look at him, not even noticing the water that had also hit you, Steve dropped the crushed remnants of the bottle and raised his hand to cup your cheek. Every single cell in his body was alight, painfully aware that you were still rocking yourself against his thigh, slight graceful movements of your hips chasing that delicious friction.

“Tell me you want me,” Steve whispered, looking into your eyes. “I need to hear it one more time. Tell me you want this.”

You looked into his eyes, and for a second, Steve felt like you saw everything, every single last fantasy he’d conjured in the darkness of his bedroom over the last few months, every thought of his that screamed how much he wanted this. But then, as his name left your lips in a desperate whimper that came combined with you pressing even tighter against his body, he realized that was all your lust. Heightened by the aphrodisiac but yours.

“Steve. I want you. I need you. Steve, please.”

His lips came down on yours, rough, greedy, claiming, and your body caught fire with that taste of his, that control and command that laced the kiss. Lust so violent that nothing you had felt during previous hours or ever in your life could compare slammed into you, crumbling into beautiful, empty whiteness everything except Steve. Your hands clawed on the suit, desperately trying to figure out how to get the damn thing off and have all that warm, masculine skin against yours. With his every single brain cell consumed by the kiss, Steve’s hand moved on muscle memory as he released the suit’s cleverly hidden clasps, the arm draped across your back never leaving its position. It was you, just you, your taste and your warmth and the delicious, tiny sounds you were breathing into the kiss as his mouth pressed against yours and his tongue ran over the pout lower lip he had stared more than he should’ve during all the meetings, his head running off with fantasies of just bending you over the damn briefing table and having his way.

His. You were his.

As the clasps opened, you yanked the suit almost violently down to bundle around Steve’s trim waist, and then finally, finally you could get your hands on all that muscle covered by silky skin. Had your lust-shorting brain had any remnant of control, you would’ve thought that it was almost ridiculous how he looked like a Greek god, how it was not possible for a human to be this chiseled artwork but frankly, you weren’t too concerned by that. He broke the kiss only to look at you, a large palm grabbing hold of your gown and yanking, and as the fabric gave like butter, he tossed it aside. It was his turn to get his hands everywhere, running over every curve of yours as you arched in his touch. Your hips rocked back and forth against the strong thigh between yours, and as he tensed the muscles, you whimpered. The fabric, smooth as it was, was almost too much in your overwired state and yet, you couldn’t imagine moving an inch as Steve’s dark gaze was fixed on your face.

“That’s my thigh, honey. Does that feel good?” he rasped, his hands moving to cup your butt for added stability as your own thighs trembled.

In response, you yanked his mouth down back on yours, delirious for the taste of him. Steve’s skin was warm and you had an inkling it should’ve been feeling like it was overheating you even more but instead it seemed to help you concentrate onto something other than your burning. Every thought was emptying from your head as the coil was tightening in your belly, heat pooling down down down and sizzling with a promise of a climax that might finally bring at least a drop of relief. God, he smelled gorgeous. He was still fresh home from a mission, and there was that hint of pure peak of man in his scent that made you whine as you chased the peak.

“Steve… Feels so good…” you moaned to his lips.

“Good,” he said, pressing a kiss onto your jawline and ghosting his lips down to whisper straight into your ear. “I’m going to make you come for me until it’s all out. I’ve got you now, honey. Let me take care of you. Let me see you come undone.”

Coming on his thigh, with those words falling into your ear like dark warm sugar, had sometime in the past felt like a filthy fantasy, and it was filthy, but it was exactly the right kind of filthy. The climax, coaxed further by his words, struck like a lightning, finally giving you a hint of shade when you had been lying on the desert sand. It was nowhere near enough, and the moment you stopped trembling and opened your eyes, the heat was already creeping back up. You needed more.

Good thing that Steve was looking at you like he wanted to eat you alive.

I’m yours if you want me.

Keeping your eyes in his, still panting for air, you pressed your palm flat against the washboard of his stomach and slid your hand down, past the bundled suit on his waist, past the waistline of his boxers. Your fingers brushed tentatively over the base of his cock and then wrapped around it as you swallowed at the sensation of the size of him. He was burning hot in your hand and despite all his self-control that bordered on superhuman, he was breathing in ragged pants as your hand slowly caressed him.

“I need you,” you whispered.

And oh, he would give. The next thing you knew, you were being backed against the wall of the room as he tore the suit completely off and kicked his boots away, and then yes, all of him slamming you against the wall, all that glorious godlike physique yours to…

keep?

The thought circled somewhere around the edges of your scattered brain that was more concerned by the fact that you were being hauled up to the wall and his fingers were brushing up your thighs and –

“Oh fuck, honey,” he groaned as his calloused hand slid over your soaking wet core. “Oh jesus.”

All those times he’d fantasized about you. All those pictures he’d conjured in the darkness of his bedroom, all those ways he had imagined he would make you sing. All within his grasp. His lips were ghosting your ear, a gentle tug of teeth here and there and you both never wanted this to stop and needed it to stop because you wanted more, more, more, everything he could and wanted to give you. Steve’s voice was low and strained as he carefully slid a finger inside you:

“So wet for me,” he whispered. “So greedy.”

He was easily holding you up on the wall by one arm slipped under your butt as his other hand worked your core, the heel of his palm rubbing gently against your clit. Even as you were sensitive from the drug, it was a different kind of sensitive, something that made you whine and wither on his touch not out of discomfort but out of pleasure you hadn’t quite imagined possible. The chase for that primal satisfaction had you shameless; coming for him just minutes before had been a sip of cooling water but what raged inside you was a wildfire that had evaporated the relief almost as soon as the last wave had washed over you.

You needed more than his fingers. You needed to be full of him.

“Steve… Just fuck me, please.”

Steve Rogers was a strong man, but there was no possibility that he could’ve resisted the feverish plea that fell from your lips, you calling out to him, you asking to… He wasn’t even thinking about resisting, no, the second the words had left your mouth he was shifting your weight in his hands.

“Don’t worry, doll, I said I’m yours,” he said, pressing a kiss to your lips. “I will. That’s what you asked me to do, didn’t you? To fuck you against the wall like this, with my cock deep inside you?”

You barely recalled the words, the message you had sent, and it mattered fuck all now that he was here, lining up to finally, finally, finally give you what you wanted.

“That was a question, doll,” he rasped, his forehead pressed against yours and sweat sprinkling on it from the effort of trying to maintain at least an inkling of composure.

“Yes. Yes. I need you. I need you to fuck me and I need you to come for me; I need you to come inside me.”

You were so needy for him that he slid inside the second he pushed against you but despite the wetness, despite the burning, it was still a sensation that made your head drop back against the wall as you adjusted to his size. God, yes. This sensation of being full of him, precisely him and not just anyone, had been something you had craved from the second the sweet vapor had floated into your system.

The feeling of you wrapped around his cock slammed into Steve’s brain, the force of the impact pushing out anything and everything except for the feral, primal animalistic need to keep doing precisely what he was doing. You were helplessly pressed between him and the wall, squeezing him, and with his hands full of your body and his ears full of your sweet moans, he was certain he was approaching some sort of ascension.

“Good girl,” his low, hoarse voice filled your ears like warm syrup. “You’re being so good for me.”

The feeling of your walls clenching even harder around his cock made him chuckle against the skin of your neck. He was throbbing inside you at the feeling, wanting this to last and wanting to chase the release he knew would be out of this world. You were burning hot in his hand, clawing at his back, incoherent at the feeling of him pressed against you and sheathed to the hilt inside you, his hips rocking with torturously slow pace that was pushing you towards the edge again.

“You like that, don’t you? You like me telling you how perfect you are for me, how well you’re taking my cock, doll?”

You were so close, so so so close again, and this time, it was going to be even better than it had been coming on his thigh. He had you, just like he always had you back on the field, that’s what you loved about him among many other things, the control, the command… And he had asked you a question. Before you could think, the words fell out of your mouth:

“Yes, Captain.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. In that second, someone poured a gallon of gasoline over Steve and threw a lit match to follow. Your words scorched every last cell in his body, the way his title rolled off your tongue making his head spin. His eyes flared into a blue inferno and his body slammed tighter against you as he lost his rhythm for a moment before stalling. You met his eyes and swallowed, because something had changed. Steve Rogers had dipped into Captain America, and you had seen that gaze of a hunting predator in his eyes on the field but had never imagined it in a context like this.

Truth be told, you had. But you had never imagined it would one day stare at you in the eye, his cock deep inside you. He had stopped, and you were barely coherent, swaying right there on the edge for him.

“Is that so, doll?” he chuckled, smiling like a shark that had smelled blood. “You want your captain to take the reins? You want to just focus on being a good girl and doing what you’re told?”

Your brain ways beyond being able to form anything resembling a sentence, you faced his gaze and nodded. You did trust him, from the bottom of your heart – you had known the moment you had started succumbing to this that if there was one person you trusted to get you out of this, it was Steve Rogers.

Your Captain.

The second your head moved in agreement, he slammed his mouth on yours, his hips moving to retreat almost completely out of you and then right back in with force that told you he had been holding back. And you wanted, needed, had to have everything of his. You buried your nails to his back as he ravaged you, his pace almost inhumanly fast but not for a second hurting. He would never. The climax that had been building itself up by coiling your entire body tighter and tighter was almost on the edge of snapping, almost almost almost –

“So fucking wet for me. So perfect for your captain. Come on my cock, honey. Let me have it.”

“STEVE!”

The fire that washed over you rivaled a supernova and you could feel your muscles clamp down on Steve’s cock almost desperately, and the combination of that and his name ripping from your throat in a desperate sob was too much for Steve, too. With one final thrust, he buried himself as deep inside you as he could and came, your core fluttering around him in a way that awakened some deep, deep hunger inside him. He knew how you felt now, he knew how his name sounded dripping from your lust-crazed lips, he knew how wet you were for him.

He was so utterly, utterly ruined.

During the momentary lapse back to reason, he ran a hand over your hot cheek, looking into your eyes. You both were breathing in gulps of air as Steve slowly slid you down the wall, sliding out of you and pulling you to him. His hands landed possessively over your hips, and you hummed in pleasure, positively drunk over the feeling of being his, completely unashamed of anything as he kissed you.

“You did so well, honey. So good for me. I’ve got you; we’ll get through this,” he murmured against your mouth.

He wasn’t done with you – not for himself, and not for you. Not by a long shot. He could feel the burning on your skin, and when he mouthed the pulse point on your neck, he could still tell that your heart was beating like a hummingbird. And the second your hand dived between your bodies and wrapped around his cock again, he was hard for you.

God bless the serum and the heightened testosterone that followed. Even as his plans for you sat firmly in the realm of unholy.

The second you touched him, his palm covered the nape of your neck, grabbing it firmly to make you look up to his eyes. The climax wasn’t the relief you had been hoping for, not yet, it was something worse and something better, a tease, a promise of eventual one but not yet, not before you would come for Steve again and again and again. As of now, you were burning, burning still. Burning for him.

“The bed. On your hands and knees,” he growled, and you obeyed.

Of course you did. When he said it like that, just like he did on missions, it was a sign that he had the control and you could trust him. It was alright. You could let go. You could forget everything and let him lead, and there was freedom in that. The surrender was a cherry on the top of the lust boiling in your body, and when you felt him kneel on the bed behind you, his large palms caressing over your thighs and hips, you shivered. He leaned over you, above you, and you could more sense than feel his broad shoulders shadowing you as he kissed the back of your neck. You were trembling in anticipation as you felt him position himself against you, almost pushing into you but not quite. Not yet.

“That’s a good girl,” he said, his voice a dark whisper on your neck. “So good at following orders.”

“Yes, Captain. Please, I need… Please.”

Steve chuckled, and his teeth carefully nibbed your shoulder before he talked again:

“Good girls get rewarded.”

Any chance of you forming a reply to the words was gone the second he pushed himself back inside you, and the angle had him brushing against every single perfect spot inside you. He was so deep, even deeper than he had been and you threw your head back in crazed whimper. He was still draped over your back, and his left hand slipped under your body, pulling you tighter against him.

“Up, honey,” he rasped into your ear.

It was more a warning than an order, because in the next second, he had shifted on the bed to sit on his heels, pulling you flush against his chest as you straddled his thighs. He was all hard muscle and musky masculinity behind and underneath you. He positioned an arm between your breasts so that you were almost caged in his grip, his palm spreading possessively over your collarbone as his breath tickled your ear. Instinctively, you moved in his lap, arching back and grabbing the back of his neck for support even as his arm held you in place with ease. His bicep felt impossibly wide as it pressed against your side but you were far more focused on the fact that he was deep enough in you that he was hitting places you weren’t aware had existed. You flexed your thighs to cradle his in between, and god, those thighs were like two tree-trunks. The curve of your butt was pressed against the washboard of his stomach, and you felt his free hand caress the side of your hip before it roamed to your inner thigh. He still wasn’t moving, even as you were slightly rocking yourself back and forth, his patience almost impossible.

“Easy, doll. We’ve got all night,” he said, but contrary to his words, he pressed two fingers to draw small circles over your clit as he finally, finally moved. “We’ve got as long as you need.”

“Steve…” you whined as he rolled his hips.

He moved his hips and your entire body with such ease that you could feel electricity crackling on your skin. It was this apex of a man buried deep inside you, this impossible demigod that was so under your spell that he was already panting against your neck.

“I’m right here, honey. Fuck, you’re so tight,” he said. “Squeezing me so good.”

His far too teasing fingers brushed over your clit in time of his rubbing thrusts, and you were being wound tighter and tighter, another climax already building inside you and the peak was building higher than you had ever felt it, preparing for the collapse that was as inevitable as it had been to end up right here.

“I’m yours.”

“Oh yes you are, doll. All mine. Looking so pretty on my cock.”

Steve was mouthing the side of your neck, grazing with his teeth until he found a spot that made you whimper and latched onto that, sucking firm enough to leave a mark. You pushed your hips forward against his fingers, trying to get more pressure, trying to get him to move faster. The second you did, he pulled you back tighter against himself, preventing you from moving on your own but continuing to move both of your bodies himself.

“You’re going to let me, doll,” he growled. “You wanted to let go. So let go. Relax. Let your captain take care of you.”

He brought his fingers up from between your legs to your lips and you let your jaw drop open without a thought at all to taste the salty, tangy combination of you and him. As your mouth closed around his fingers in wet, warm softness, Steve moaned a strained curse against the your shoulder and picked up the pace.

You were gone. You were floating somewhere beyond all reality, somewhere where the only thing that existed was the man behind you and inside you and the burning in your veins that craved. Him, this, anything he could and would give you.

The feeling of you sucking on his fingers and your soaked core trying to desperately keep him from retreating as he moved his hips, your muscles clenching around his cock, was beyond Steve’s wildest fantasies. He was beyond any conscious thought whatsoever, his brain focused only on thought of spending the rest of his life buried deep inside you, pulling a peak after peak after peak from you until you were all spent and all his. With a lewd, wet sound, he pulled his fingers out of your mouth despite your whiny protest and pressed them again at your core to continue touching you in sync with his movements. You were almost there, strung tight with desire in his lap, your core slick and burning around his cock. He mouthed a path from your neck to your earlobe and teased it with his teeth, his breath hot and filthy and dripping with sin in your ear as you whimpered.

“You’re going to come for me, love. You’re going to come for your captain,” he rasped, the authority unquestionable. “That’s an order.”

His words pushed you right over the edge, collapsing the mountain that had been rising from the sea within you and the earthquake that came did Steve in, too. You could hear him moan your name into your ear as he came, the feeling of you irresistible as you came undone for him. It was an explosion that scorched through you, a heat that consumed the previous burn that had been in you, swallowed it whole like an exploding supernova swallowed a galaxy. Whole, and without mercy. It sent you falling back into what felt like a cooling pool of water after you had been catching fire, after a whole day spent in the scorching sun.

The whiteness that came after was still and absolute for a second or two and then you felt Steve’s chest rumble behind your limp body, his cock still buried deep inside you and his hands holding you so close.

“Better?” he chuckled, leaning over your shoulder to press a kiss to your cheek.

“Yes,” you whispered.

It was. You were starting to feel like you weren’t going to spontaneously combust but even as it was the case, you were far from exhausted, and Steve chuckled again as he felt your core flutter around him.

“Not done?”

You shook your head and he retreated back, kissing your temple and then whispering into your ear:

“Good. Cause I’m far from being done with you, too.”

In the late night, you descended back into your body from somewhere between fever dream and consciousness to find yourself comfortable in bed. A shape like a warm rock wall was pressed against your back, and you were being held in strong arms: safe. So safe. At some point during the night, when you had been finally feeling like you could sleep, Steve had carried you to the shower and spent long minutes washing your body. And of course, you had returned the favor, and gotten a taste of him. And of course, Steve had been able to take only so much of you kneeling on the shower floor with his cock in between your plush lips before he had had to haul you up and slowly, almost languorously have you against the tiled wall. And of course, you had come for him one more time even as you had been forced to consider that the next climax might be the one to shut your brain off completely.

There were worse ways to go.

In the dark room, wrapped in satin sheets that would probably have to be burned after this, you stirred once more. A gentle breath tickled the back of your neck, and even half asleep, you felt your lust wake, heat pooling into the bottom of your stomach and tingling all over your skin. The past few hours seemed like a pleasant, hazy dream that still caressed your body.

More. More more more more.

The greediness of your hindbrain coaxed you back to life. You rocked your hips back against the man that was spooning you, and drowsily whispered his name, still unsure which part of you actually knew it was him.

“Steve.”

The answer to your whimper was a dark chuckle and a slightly sleepy kiss onto your earlobe.

“Right here, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Do you need me again?”

“Need you. Want you,” you whined, rocking your hips again, satisfied to feel that he was already hard.

Wanting you as much as you wanted him. One of the hands that held you slid down to grab your hips and roll you onto your back, and in the next second, he leaned over you to kiss you even as his hand slid down your stomach. Your renewed desire had you already wet for him again, and he groaned as he parted your folds to feel it.

“God, doll, how do you ever expect me to get enough of you when you feel like this?”

He positioned himself over you again, trailing slow, teasing kisses down your stomach as you tried to rock up to coax him on. His hands were roaming up and down your body, caressing your skin with the lightest of touches and stopping to squeeze every now and then.

“You don’t have to,” you whispered. “I’m yours.”

That lit a fire. Steve let out a harsh, ragged breath and moved down to sink his face in between your legs. There was no tentativeness to it this time, not after he’d spent the last twelve or so hours thoroughly exploring you, making note of every way you reacted to his touch. He knew what to do, and a proud shiver, like a predator shaking its fur dry, shot down his spine.

His. You were his.

He was absolutely merciless, his tongue never letting up even as your whimpers of his name grew louder with every movement. He was holding you down by your hipbones, your thighs resting on his shoulders, not letting you move an inch. The burning blue flames of his eyes looked at you as you writhed and whined and moaned his name for him, and a reminder of his eidetic memory crossed your mind. He would remember this, and the way he was looking at you, he was making sure that he would get every single detail. As he gently buried two fingers inside you, you were certain that you would’ve jumped on the bed had his arm not been firmly resting on top of your hips.

“I want to wake you up like this every day,” he whispered hoarsely, his head still in between your thighs. “I want the first thing you feel in the morning to be coming apart on my tongue, and I want to go out into the world with your sweet voice moaning my name echoing in my ears.”

Yes. Yes. Yes, please.

“Fuck, Steve…”

He cursed at the sensation of you clamping down on his fingers, desperate for the sensation of being full again because you were ruined, ruined, utterly ruined by him. There would not be going back from this, not after being loved and worshipped and fucked like this by someone who was closer to a god than a man.

“Come for me, love,” he whispered against you, command and a plea at the same time.

What was there to do but obey as his fingers curled up, brushing against a sensitive spot inside you, and the endearment fell from Steve’s lips like a confession you had been waiting for?

The minute you returned to your senses, the self-satisfied chuckle that rumbled from between your legs gave you no other option than to beg for him to fill you? And with how wrapped around your finger he had already been for months, you could’ve asked Steve to fetch you the moon and the stars, and he would’ve obeyed without question. To sheathe himself inside you was certainly not a tall order, especially not with how you wrapped your limbs around him, trying to get him as close as possible.

It was love. It had to be, wrapped into the scarlet-red silks of lust as it now was.

When it finally settled down again, your voice hoarse from screaming his name into the dim room that was luckily very well soundproofed, he still wanted to hold you close. His fingers traced lazy patterns over your back.

“God, I should’ve said something in Verona,” he rasped into your hair as your warm weight rested against his chest. “About how much of an embarrassing crush I had on you.”

You shifted closer, soaking in the comfort of being cherished and wanted and protected like this, and when you smiled against his skin, you were already halfway back in a dream. It certainly was an unconventional beginning, and as the aphrodisiac was almost out of you, one sardonic part of your brain was wondering how you’d spin the beginning of this love story for the press. Which would certainly be foaming at the mouth when it found out two Avengers were dating.

“Maybe you should say that tomorrow, then,” you whispered.

And that was exactly what he intended to do.

Next Chapter >>

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers smut #steve roges x female reader #captain america x reader #ssf fic: volatile

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ak-vintage · 7 months ago

Text

Quarry (Series Masterlist)

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader

Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.

Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.

Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.

Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI, slow burn romance, minimal descriptors of reader character, dual POV, canon-typical violence, sexual tension, light angst, mutual pining, SMUT (Each chapter will have specific warnings, please check them before reading!)

Status: Ongoing

Read on AO3

Main Story

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9 - Part 1

Chapter 9 - Part 2

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23 - NEW! 10/7/24

Oneshots

Coming soon...

#din djarin #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal character fanfiction #din djarin smut #pedro pascal characters

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astarionancuntnin · 7 months ago

Text

Undisclosed Desires (Chapter 2)

summary: its the day after you and astarion indulged in each other's embrace. it shouldve been a once done deal, nothing more, but that last night ended with you questioning your feelings for the pale elf. you struggle to come to terms with those and the day might prove more difficult as you get trapped alone with him in a secluded dungeon

or in short:

rating: E

word count: 4k

pairing: astarion x you (fem!reader, sorceress tav)

cw: 18+. smut, porn with little-to-no plot, karlach gets hurt for the sake of the porn (shes doing her part o7), denial of feelings, sexual tension through the roof, dom!tav/reader, teasing, dry humping, begging, ear licking, vampire bites, kinda praise kink, sorta breeding kink, your honor- theyre both brat switches fighting to top the other.

a/n: at long last, chapter 2! i had so much fun with the dialogues, i hope you enjoy them as much as i did uwu. also, inspo song at the beginning is the same as chapter 1, but a different part of the song, and end of chapter song is a different one (that i linked at the end). let me know how you feel about the dynamic in this chapter 👀

Masterlist

previous chapter

read on ao3

next chapter

or keep reading down below ~

I shut my eyes

You call but I just cut the line

I know your style

I know that you want one more night

And I'm backsliding

Into this just one more time

You wake up this morning to the sound of your companions talking nearby. Instinctively, you reach for the spot next to you, only to find it empty. Figures. If it wasn’t for the aching pain in your muscles and the dizziness of your mind, you’d think what happened last night was just a dream.

The way Astarion had ravaged your body, how feral he was, the taste of him on your lips, how he felt between your legs…

Instinctively, you rub your thighs together, chasing the feeling from the previous night. You already feel that warmth between your legs as a result of those memories flooding back to you. You hear laughing outside your tent and it brings you back to the present moment ; your companions are probably waiting for you.

You quickly push aside any thoughts of him and reach for your clothes to get dressed up for the day. You take some time to prepare for what your companions have to say about the sounds that came from your tent last night. They had to have heard.

As you take your first step outside, Karlach is the first to greet you.

“Hey Soldier! Slept well? Doubt it was restful but it looks like you had the time of your life!” She nudges you.

“You can say that again! Those screams made me believe she was dying in there!” Shadowheart shouts, sitting near the campfire, before her and Karlach start laughing.

You feel yourself turn redder after each remark. Hells, I didn’t realize how loud I was.

“It did sound… intense. Are you sure you’re alright?” Wyll speaks up, more worried about you.

You lift your blushing face which was hiding in shame between your hands. “Oh, yeah no, I’m fine just- um,” you turn to Shadowheart, “Can I ask you to cast lesser restoration on me, please?”

She looks at you puzzled, “Can’t you cast it on yourself?”

“The only thing I wanna cast on myself at this very moment is eldritch blast, now, can you please cast the damn spell?”

“So much for the ‘great sorceress with limitless talents’,” she mocks you, reminding you of the very words you used back when you introduced yourself to her.

“SHADOW.”

“Fine, fine,” she scoots over the log, making space for you. “Come here, I’ll take care of you.”

You walk over to her and you sigh as you sit down, completely slouched over.

“Gods, he really did a number on you, huh,” she casts lesser restoration and you straighten up, instantly feeling much better.

“Yeah, you should see the other guy,” you say, smiling, proud to have gained back your wits.

“Speaking of,” Wyll interjects. “We haven’t seen him all morning. We fully expected him to come out of your tent.”

“Huh, I did wake up alone,” you confess. “I just assumed he went back to his tent.”

“Heh! Maybe he’s still in there recuperating from your night together!” Karlach shouts, before laughing some more.

“Alright, alright, I’ll go check up on him,” you roll your eyes as you get up to walk towards his tent.

You’re glad it’s placed far enough from the campfire to be out of your friend’s sights. You didn’t want to give them more ideas if they saw you with the vampire this morning. You call out his name before opening the flap of his tent, only to reveal it to be empty.

“Looking for something?”

You slightly jump, as if you were caught doing something you shouldn’t have, and quickly turn around to face him.

“Gods, you startled me.”

He walks towards you, shirtless, with his hair still damp from his morning bathing and his trousers hanging loosely around his hips.

“Terribly sorry dear, I would never do this to you intentionally.”

His little smile is unnerving. Your heartbeat quickens, and you frown at yourself; You can’t allow yourself to falter this early in the day. You take a deep breath, your way to gain back control over yourself.

“We’re almost ready to leave, so I came looking for you,” you try to look elsewhere but you’re mesmerized by his sight.

“Well, here I am now. Can I… help you with something?”

He raises his hand and strokes your cheek gently with the back of it, his face dangerously getting near yours. You feel your face burning hotter and it takes everything in you to push yourself away from him.

“We should really go, just– get dressed. I’ll uh, I’ll wait for you around the campfire with the others.”

You turn around completely flustered and walk back to your companions.

“Again?!” Karlach exclaims as she sees the state you’re in. “At this rate, you’ll turn redder than me!”

You wanna crawl into the depths of the hells and never come back up.

—

Today’s quest brings you to a secluded dungeon. Your findings from the previous days led you there in search for more information about an artifact you previously found throughout your adventure. If you’re correct, you should find here what’s missing for it to work. Now the only thing left to do is actually finding that missing piece.

With a swift flick of his wrist, Astarion opens the door to the lower grounds. As the door opens, you’re greeted by damp air and a musty smell. The place is dusty and covered in spiderwebs. Whatever you’re looking for must be here judging by the fact that no one has been down here in ages. You all walk in and notice that the place is a damned maze filled with countless rooms. You split up from the group, starting the search on your own, and the first room you walk in greets you with an absurdly obvious trap. You sigh, discouraged, as you fall back against the wall next to the entrance. Guess I won’t be able to avoid him much longer.

“Astarion? A hand?!” Your voice echoes through the hallways, followed by the sound of his footsteps.

He makes his way towards you nonchalantly, “You called, dear?”

“Can you take care of this?” You point towards the device.

He leans over you, his arms caging you between him and the wall, “I could, if you were to ask nicely.” His face hovers dangerously close to you, you can feel his cold breaths ghosting over your lips. It would be so easy to just tilt your head up and close the gap… No, you can’t let him win this. Last night was just a mutual agreement. An exchange of sorts. Nothing more, nothing less.

You cross your arms over your chest, creating some distance between the two of you, “Don’t push your luck.”

“Oh well, I assume you know how to deal with such an intricate mechanism then, if you’re so much better than I am?”, he wears his typical shit-eating grin.

You roll your eyes and step over your pride, “Fine. Can you please disarm this trap so we can carry on?”

“See? Now, was that so hard?” He gives you a playful look before getting to work.

You stand next to him as he fickles with the machinery when you hear a loud commotion from afar.

“FUCK!”

You recognize the voice from your fiery friend and waste no time running towards the source of her scream, only to find her in a terrible state with Shadowheart kneeling next to her. Her leg is barely recognizable. Whatever got her rendered her unable to fight from now on.

“What happened?!”

“Godsdamned trap got me, shit!” She keeps groaning in pain.

“Alright, Shadowheart, do you think you can take care of her wounds?”

“I can stabilize her, but she won’t be able to carry on with her injuries, we need to head back to camp as soon as possible so I can tend to her,” she explains.

“Okay, okay,” your eyes wander between your friends as you’re thinking of a solution. “Yeah, okay, you’re right, I’m not risking Karlach’s life on this,” the cleric nods in agreement, “But we can’t back track now. Who knows what else this trap triggered, it might’ve alarmed someone. We are so close to finding the answer, I can't risk letting it slip past us.”

Shadowheart raises as she’s about to argue but you cut her off, “Don’t worry, I still believe you two should head to the camp. Astarion and I will carry on.” You feel Shadowheart’s glare of disapproval. “I swear we’ll be careful and we’ll run back to you guys should we encounter a situation that's too much for us.” You try to reassure your friend.

“Oooooooo, keeping Fangs all to yourself?” Karlach never missed an opportunity to tease you, even when in insufferable pain. You could respect that.

“Oh please, if it were up to me, he would be the one in that trap.”

“Rude,” Astarion remarks from behind you. You can’t help the smirk creeping up on your face.

“Fine,” the half-elf frowns in resignation. “We’ll head back– but don’t do anything stupid.”

“We wouldn’t dream of it,” Astarion adds sarcastically, as the two walk away.

With half of your party gone, you lose no time continuing your research. You didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary with half the manpower in unknown territory. You pass a few halls and rooms, each containing an absurd amount of traps for what little they were hiding, slowly getting discouraged from your lack of findings, when you hear rumble afar.

You both still, listening to the sounds, when you realize they are making their way towards you.

“Hide!”, you barely whisper.

Before he can react, you roughly drag Astarion with you in the next open room and slam the door behind you. You acted faster than you could think ; the sound of the door was loud and the footsteps are now getting faster and louder. You try to remain calm to avoid drawing any more attention than necessary when you see the expression change on your companion’s face, followed by him yelling.

“What in the sweet hells is wrong with–!”

You don’t give him time to finish his sentence as you push him against the stone wall by his waist with the force of your whole body, while your other hand covers his mouth. You stare intensely into his eyes and mouth a “shh”, as silent as you can, to convey the urgency for him to shut up as the rumble of the footsteps get even closer to your location. He blinks rapidly and nods, understanding your motion, but brings his hand up to remove yours from his mouth. You hear the footsteps stop nearby and your heart pounding in your chest as your breathing stills. Your eyes dart towards the door, anxiety building up in your chest. Anything could be outside. You cannot risk getting into a fight you couldn’t handle. Against his own good, Astarion speaks up yet again.

“Let’s just kill–”

And you shut him up, again.

This time, with a kiss.

It’s a surprise to both of you. It was sudden, instinctive. You’re not sure what took over you, but at this moment, it seemed to be the best course of action. You stay motionless for a moment before pulling away, slowly. You hear the sounds outside your room getting further away and you finally breathe out in relief. He looks at you with an annoying smile painted over his face.

You notice him observing you. “You really need to learn when to shut up,” you say, a poor excuse to try and justify your actions, as a blush takes place over your cheeks.

His lidded eyes observe your lips before making eye contact again, “And you think you know better?”

“I know I do,” you frown slightly.

He keeps smiling, that damn annoyingly confident smile. “I’m afraid you’ll have to teach me, then. I’ve been known to be awfully loud.”

You scoff. The audacity of this man.

Initially, that first kiss was never supposed to lead to anything else. It was spontaneous, a means to an end, just like your last night spent together. Anything to stop him from talking, whatever would save you from being found. But you couldn’t deny the feelings that fluttered in your stomach, the butterflies in your chest.

He continues, his words dripping with sarcasm, “I’m sure a sorceress of your expertise must have some way to silence a noisy rogue like myself.”

You realize then : all along, you didn’t hate him, you hated the fact that you were attracted to him, to that damn attitude of his. Truth is, you couldn’t have enough of that banter between the two of you. Every morning, that was the thing you were looking forward to. There was no denying yourself anymore ; you chased the feeling of arguing with this overblown, pretentious asshole. You wanted him, in more ways than one, and in any way he would offer himself to you.

“I can think of a few tricks,” you lean over him the same way he did you earlier, your faces barely an inch apart.

“Try me,” his voice is barely a whisper by now.

You let your feelings guide your next move as you pull him in by the collar of his armor, crashing your lips against his. If he saw this as a game, you intended to win. As the kiss depends, you’re taken back to that scenario you played in your head the night before, prior to Astarion’s visit.

At the next corner, you would’ve pushed him by the waist against the nearest wall and shut his pretty mouth up.

Your kiss started out rough, but it quickly became passionate, it engulfed both of you into a world of your own. His hands roamed up your back and down your waist, pulling you in closer, reaching for more contact. Your sorcerer robe allowed for you to feel how tightly he grabbed you and yet, it didn’t feel like enough. You wished for nothing more than having your skin being ravished by his touch.

You would’ve taken the chance to let one of your hands roam through his silky smooth, curly hair, pulling it enough to get a moan out of him.

Oh, and how soft it was. Freshly washed from this morning, his curls felt like silk through your fingers. You let your hands linger in his hair, combing through it, before lightly pulling it back. He groans in your mouth as a response, not parting from your lips just yet, and you smile through it.

How you would’ve parted his legs with your own, and grinded against his crotch, feeling his growing bulge.

You easily push yourself between his legs and grind against him. He pulls back from your kiss then, gasping in surprise. With the threat outside the room being long gone, you welcomed any noise you would get out of him. You feel his cock getting harder against your leg and you keep rubbing him up and down, creating more pressure over his member. He rests his head on your shoulder, breathing hard, his hold on you getting tighter.

“Hells, darling, I didn’t think you had it in you,” he pants.

“Mmh, seems like I’ve got a lot more to teach you then.”

You reach for your trousers under your robe, letting them fall down after loosening your belt, before reaching for his, pulling them down just low enough to expose his cock which is already leaking with pre-come. He hisses when you grab a hold of him, your mere touch sending shivers down his spine.

You smirk at the visible reaction he has to you, feeling powerful over him. Such a contrast compared to your last night tryst. This time, you were guiding this dance.

You guide him towards your entrance, only to grind yourself over him. He slides so easily between your wet folds and you can’t help the moan escaping your lips. The friction over your clit is nothing short of euphoric. You swing your hips back and forth, coating his length with your arousal, as he holds onto your waist for dear life. You grab his face and pull him closer so your foreheads touch, then take a moment to admire the mess you’re making of him, and by the Gods, what a pretty mess he was. His parted lips, gasping between each stroke you would allow him, his eyes fluttering open, lost in the feeling of your thighs squeezing him, his roughed up curls from the sweat building up on his forehead.

He was beautiful.

You feel him moving on his own, trying to change positions so he has more control, but it's not something you will allow this time. You take his hands from your waist and push them against the wall he was leaning against, never stopping the rhythm you had going on.

“What do you think you're doing?” Your voice is coated with desire.

“Please, let me in,” he begs.

“Do you think you deserve it?”, you say, playfully.

“Gods, I– yes, yes I do!”, he whines.

“Beg more.”

“What?! I will not–”, before he can finish his sentence, you reach for his ear with your tongue and give it a lick from the base to the tip. “Mmmgh ah, fuck–”

“What was that?” You nibble on his ear.

“I– Ah–,” his entire resolve crumbles. “Please, love, I need you please,” he begs again, his voice faltering.

You continue to lick and nibble on his ear. “See? Now, was that so hard?” you tease, using his own words against him.

“Oh, you little– ah–!”

You cut him off as you raise your leg to hook it to his hips allowing you for a better angle as you push him inside you slowly. You’re so wet from teasing him that he slides in without any resistance.

You throw your head back, taking in the feeling of him filling you, and at the vision of your exposed neck, Astarion leans in the crook of your neck, bared fangs scratching the spot he previously fed from you. You feel his cold breath along with the wetness of his tongue, lapping at your healed wound. You sense what he wants to do and although you crave it and you would let him do it, you don’t wanna give in so easily.

You stop all motion and with him buried deep inside of you, your hand lingering in his hair grabs a handful of curls to pull him back, away from your prized neck, holding him in place.

He growls insistently, his true nature coming back to him.

“Give me one good reason,” you tug harder.

Through his ragged breath, he smiles playfully, “I just wanted a snack for the road.”

“You drank last night, you don’t need it,” your tone comes out raspy and aggressive despite your enjoyment of the situation.

“But you want this,” he pauses, watching your reaction. Your answer isn’t spoken, as much as it’s seen : your chest rises higher with each panting breath you take, your eyes flutter, drunk on lust, and your core is dripping wet, your combined fluids leaking against your leg. “Don't you?” He knows both of you know it's a fight for control.

You thrust roughly, once, to reassert your position over him, making him whimper. “And just what makes you think that?”

He locks eyes with you, a grin painting over his face. “You seemed to enjoy it last time.”

“Hardly.”

“My dear, you can deny it all you want, but I can read you like an open book.”

You hated how he always managed to have the last word. One day, you tell yourself, It’ll be me. But for now…

“Shut up and bite me.”

The second you let go of your grasp in his hair, Astarion dives in the nook of your neck, plunging his fangs in your pulsating vein. You cry out at the sharp sting you feel and once the initial pain settles in, you pick back up the rhythm you had earlier, making the elf groan as he drinks you in. He was right, his bites had the effect of an aphrodisiac on you. You would never tell him though, his ego was inflated enough as is, admitting it would only make him more insufferable than he already is.

His hold on you became tighter and the more he drank, the less your strength allowed you to keep your position, but the build up down your stomach only grew. You didn't want to falter so close to the end.

“Astarion…” you warn him.

He growls against your neck and takes one last sip of your liquid gold before removing his fangs from you, licking off the new wound he created to clean you up. That's something else you could appreciate from the vampire ; no matter how selfish you found him, he did seem to respect the boundaries you established. He would absolutely push all of your buttons but when it came to sex he seemed more attentive, responsive. You never wanted to fall for him, but your heart had other plans.

You cross your arms around his neck, closing any remaining distance between your two bodies and with all the energy left in you, you thrust harder, and faster, letting yourself get lost in the overwhelming feeling he provided between your legs. Now that you had experienced him once, you craved getting filled up by him, only him, as much as possible, as much as he wanted to. You wanted to be his.

“Darling, I’m close–”

“Come, let go for me,” you breathe in his ear before licking him again. “You’re so pretty when you come inside me.”

Your last words combined with the stimulation you’ve given him trigger his collapse in your arms. He grasps your hips vigorously, pulling you flush against him, allowing him to unload himself deep inside of your womb. You fall over the edge shortly after, drinking in the feeling of his semen filling you up. You fantasized constantly about being filled to the brim by him. Used over and over again, leaking from his seed, the act merely done to defile you in his image. You clench around his length, your legs shaking as you picture yourself overflowing with his come and ride out the wave of electrifying pleasure that courses through you.

As you come down from your high and let your leg down, you reach for something to grab a hold of so as to not completely fall over. Astarion had completely slouched over the wall you fucked him over, he was not an option. The nearest thing that seemed solid enough was an empty torch holder placed right next to the door which you grab without second thoughts. The last thing you expected was for it to pull down as you grabbed it. Even less that it opened a secret trap door in the middle of the room, from which a pillar came out of. You stay in place for a moment, piecing together what just happened, with Astarion making eye contact with you, just as puzzled as you were.

Before you now stands an altar with a very clearly placed piece of dark metal, shaped strangely like the pattern you remember being described in the previous document you found. You put your trousers back on, dismissing the mess between your legs, and grab the missing piece, connecting it to the artifact you held, to see it click in place.

“No fucking way.”

Astarion smirks, as if he was responsible for your discovery, proud of himself, “Wouldn’t have found that out with Karlach now, would you?”

He will never let you live this down.

When you're around me, I'm radioactive

My blood is burning, radioactive

I'm turning radioactive

My blood is radioactive

My heart is nuclear

Love is all that I fear

#my posts #my writing #bg3 #astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion x you #bg3 smut #bg3 fanfiction #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #baldur's gate 3 #astarion smut #self insert #bg3 fanfic #smut #Spotify #fic: undisclosed desires

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skzdarlings · 3 months ago

Text

bodyguard: the first guard | part five | chan/reader

masterlist.

(part one of the previous story.)

( read on AO3 )

A sequel to the Bodyguard. Miroh’s daughter is assigned a bodyguard of her own. The past is confronted when old friendships and new enemies are pushed to the brink.

pairing: bang chan/reader content info: sequel to the bodyguard (felix/reader). this is a new reader perspective. this chapter contains explicit sexual content. this chapter also has a content warning for descriptions of torture and dehumanization, plus the aftermath of trauma, themes of identity loss and healing. the previously established story dynamics are prevalent. chapter word count: 10,200 words.

enjoy <3

B E FO R E

Felix returns to the base and he is scrutinized, as expected. They all want to know why he was taken, what the enemy wanted, how he escaped. Felix has never played so many sides all while obfuscating his real objective. Alone, he guides himself through the venomous viper’s pit that is this war: Miroh and his enemy, Miroh and the world.

Where it concerns the enemy, Miroh will always intervene. He sees the enemy as the antithesis to the house of Miroh. A rich, spoiled fool, holed up in his golden cave, oblivious to what he has and the work it takes to acquire it. Miroh is jealous. Miroh is hateful.

Those are emotions that Felix can manipulate. He learned it from the best.

“It was an ambush,” Felix tells him. “They knew I was going to be there. They were waiting for me.” He uses his reputation, formed by Miroh, against Miroh.

Felix would never lose a fight. Felix would never fail a mission. Felix would never surrender. Felix is a reflection of Miroh so he presents the most flattering image.

“What information did they want?” Miroh asks.

Felix can see the gears spinning in his head. What could the enemy be seeking so determinedly to lay a trap for Miroh’s asset? Oh, Miroh has a suspicion. Felix can see it, because he knows exactly what it is.

“They asked about Project Twenty-Three,” Felix says. “I told them I had never heard of it. Even if I had, I wouldn’t tell them anything.”

Project Twenty-Three. Chris has vented about it to Felix. It is a cyber mission, striking against the enemy’s tightly guarded servers. It intends to blackout the grid and lay virtual traps while they re-calibrate, compromising not only the enemy but everyone else on that grid: civilians, their homes, their hospitals, their shelters.

It is a significant job for its scope and because it is the first time a mission will be helmed by Miroh’s daughter.

Miroh’s daughter, Chris says, intends to sabotage the operation.

It is Felix’s worst fears coming true. Miroh’s daughter rebelling against Miroh is doomed to be a catastrophe. She will inevitably go down and when that blaze tears through the sky, Chris will crash and burn in a similar inferno. He is too blinded by proximity, too idealistic to see how it is impossible to truly destroy a man like Miroh.

No one but classified personnel are supposed to know about Project Twenty-Three. Miroh’s daughter let it slip to Chan, who let it slip to Felix. As far as Miroh is concerned, Felix should not know about it. As far as Miroh is concerned, Felix is telling the truth.

As far as Miroh is concerned, someone is leaking highly sensitive data to the enemy.

“I’m smarter than that, though,” Felix says. He appeals to all that haughty vanity and says, “I was trained by the best. Of course I got away.”

“Of course,” Miroh says. Where before, he was wary, his guard comes down.

Felix can sneak in. Felix can lay his attack.

“What else did they say?” Miroh asks.

“I overheard them,” Felix says. “They’re going to try and kill you. And it’s going to happen inside your house.”

The trap is laid.

P R E S E N T D A Y

Miroh only put one soldier through a reconfiguration program. And it wasn’t me. It was you.

Chan looks at you as if you shot him even though he was the one who fired at you.

The words land with more violence than a bullet.

It can’t be true. That is your first reaction: denial. He is lying or he is confused or something, something, something. Anything but whatever he just said.

He tries to step towards you. You look at him and think of the First Guard: him in that corridor, a hand around your neck. He fought just enough to make it real, the way you and Changbin sometimes fight, but it never went too far, did it? You think back to that first fight in the ring. You commended yourself for lasting so long, but that should have been a hint. You would not have lasted a round with the First Guard on a good day, never mind after fighting several others. He never came at you with the full brunt of his fatal capacity like you would expect, like you should have considered at the time.

His eyes in the van, the tilt of his head.

Trusting as your car stopped an inch from his body.

His hands out like you were a wild, unpredictable animal, a weapon, something lethal he had to contain. It’s me, he said. It’s just me. As if you knew who that was.

He does the same thing now. You wrench away from him.

“No,” you say.

He says your name but it doesn’t sound like a name; it sounds like begging, it sounds like please, it sounds like desperation, painfully barbed on his tongue. You half expect him to start bleeding from the mouth.

“No,” you say again. You jerk away even though he has stopped reaching for you. You feel a phantom hand on your chest and on your head, a cold fire in your veins.

You slam shoulders as you dart past. He says your name again, this time like an alarm, only barely short of a scream as he chases after you. You get as far as the door before he catches you, his hand wrapped around your bicep and your name a weapon on his lips.

“Stop it,” you say. It isn’t loud but it is brutal all the same.

He lets go as if you electrocuted him.

You look at him. He stares back, all that begging in his dark eyes.

“You can’t – you can’t leave,” he says. His panic bubbles into frustration and he says, “You just told me off for doing that, didn’t you?”

You think of him on that rooftop, not even blinking at Miroh’s dead body, like he couldn’t care less, his eyes rivetted to you alone.

“Do you trust me?” you ask.

You think he would rather get hit. A moment of pain, a scar to join the others. Instead, he has to endure the intensity of your eyes, suffer whatever fucked up expression is haunting your body, and then he has to let you go.

You do not look at his face when leaving. You don’t want to see this side of him. There are already too many versions of him in your head, just as there are too many versions of yourself.

The denial does not last long. You walk through the brisk night, destination nowhere. The sky feels too big.

It’s preposterous, isn’t it? You are in your body right this moment, looking at the world with your own eyes. How can anything be wrong inside? But even while attempting to convince yourself otherwise, you know the truth. It has been long unfurling in the back of your mind. You have not felt like yourself for days, maybe weeks, maybe the entire three months since this downfall began.

You don’t even remember what it means to feel like yourself.

All the nightmares, the visions, the flashes of dreams that feel more like memories – maybe memories is exactly what they are. So suppressed it feels like watching a movie rather than your own life, but your story regardless. Sifting through those fragments feels like searching through rubble in a collapse. How are you ever expected to find a person under that much annihilation?

When it happens, Changbin said, what feels like a lifetime ago. When it’s just you and you’re trying to decide who you want to be, not who your father wants you to be… When you’re trying to remember everything and you can’t decide what was real and what was just training and what was Miroh…”

A sob rips out of you. You have cried more in days than you have in years. You cover your face and fall into the dark of your closed eyes. You see your friend, not a fragment or broken memory, but a whole person. The scar on your palm twinges, reminding you that you are real and here.

Remember me, he said.

That was the very first thing you did. You saw him on that rooftop and you remembered something. Him, younger, bleeding, emerging from a fog of smoke. He lifted a weight off your chest. He made you a promise.

You try to chase the memory of that dream, try to hold the image of him in your mind, but it moves like water through a sieve. It’s like he’s standing right there, just in the corner of your eye if you could only turn your head to look. But you are trapped in place. Pinned down, a weight on your chest.

You lose track of time under the stars. You are too numb to feel the cold. Only when the sky purples with the very earliest streak of dawn do you move. You look at your feet as you walk and it feels like someone else is moving you. You know it’s just exhaustion, a trick of the weary eye, but a shudder moves through you.

You don’t want to think about it. Whenever your mind starts to go there – to that room, to that hole, to the cell – it backs away screaming. It is probably why you can’t hold any picture for longer than a second.

A small part of you still rebels, insisting it isn’t true because it’s can’t be true, but you know intrinsically that it is.

This confirmation solidifies when you get back to the room and find Chan still awake, sitting in a chair with his head in his hands.

He lifts his head. You can’t hold his gaze for long, swallowed up by the dark depth that sees something in you, far beyond the surface, buried so deep you can’t find it.

You turn away. You climb into bed.

It isn’t an escape. You know that, even as you close your eyes and shut out the world. It’s all waiting for you there, your subconscious caught in a perpetually crashing tidal wave.

You fall asleep, ready to face the nightmares.

It feels like swimming against an acidic current. You push through but it bears down; you struggle but it burns your skin, sloughs down to the clean marrow. Pieces of you are lost to the tide. You try to catch each flaking sliver of personhood but then your arms are full and you can no longer swim.

You are going to drown.

“Let go,” says a voice, colder than the water. “This will all stop. Just let go.”

Just let go. Just let your skin unravel. Just let the tide take it away. You will never get it back. You will be a living corpse, a half-consciousness puppeting your bones.

You decide to drown. You slip further and further into the blackness behind your lids.

“Hey, it’s me! I’m coming!”

Changbin.

You can hear his footsteps as he thunders towards you, but you can’t see him. Your eyelids are so heavy, as if being held shut by a hand in the water.

Another hand reaches straight through the corrosive cold and seizes your face in a desperate grip.

“Wake up,” Changbin says. He taps your cheek repeatedly, a little harder each time, a little more frantic. “Hey, wake up. Please. Please wake up.”

It feels like he is prying your eyes open. One moment there is nothing but darkness, then Changbin is there. He looks like he did when you last saw him, grown, fight-ready, a little scar on his face. It bleeds more than such a tiny mark should. A droplet hits your cheek, burning hot compared to the water.

“It’s me,” he says. “Hold on. Keep your eyes open. Don’t go. I promise I’ll get you out.”

Don’t go. Don’t go. An echoing reverberation that circles the wooden beams high above your head. You look there, staring at the ceiling as your lungs slowly fill with oxygen.

The ceiling shatters in a spray of splinters, the world vanishing in a cloud of grey smoke. Changbin is gone and your father stands over you, keeping that weight on your chest with a press of his fist.

“You’ll thank me one day,” he says, and plunges you back under water. Ice cold currents and electric hot fire twine in and around you in an unfathomable vice. Your vision flickers as you twitch and flail, avoiding one sensation to succumb to the other.

“Don’t go,” Changbin says. “I promise I’ll get you out.”

Another bolt of lightning slices through you.

“Just let go.” A cold and clinical voice.

There is a war between those voices. Time passes slowly as you volley in the current, slamming into one or the other.

In the bubbling frenzy, you hear a whisper.

“Let her go.” That is not Changbin. That is not your father. It’s too soft – soft, until it’s not, until it sounds like speaking through an open chest cavity, heaving up its heart with every cry. “Please,” the voice begs. “Let her go.”

“Thank me,” your father says. He stands with his back to you, angled just enough you can see the gun in his hands. You can’t see the person on the receiving end. You just know it’s a soldier. You just know it’s a boy.

You have to stop it. The thought overwhelms you and you reach for the gun, but your hand never makes contact, splashing through cold water.

“Subject recognizes control,” says that clinical voice.

There is a hand on your chest. It pushes you back under water.

You are alone in the current and the corrosion and the cold. The hand pushes you deeper and deeper into the endless darkness under you.

You are going to drown. You are going to let yourself drown.

“You don’t want to do that,” you say.

Your father still has a gun in his hand. It is pointed at that boy.

“Subject— Control—”

You need to get that gun. You need to swim. You need to see him. You need to save him.

You finally let go.

You open your eyes.

Unlike in your dreams, it’s fast. You jolt awake in a cold sweat. The ceiling is unmoving, the air cool and dry from the motel’s cheap, noisy air conditioner. The blinds are closed but the neon light outside the window creates a fuzzy square halo. It brightens the room just enough to see the outline of everything clearly.

That includes Chan.

He is still awake. If this was just one night ago, you would tell him to get into bed and sleep because you can’t have him tired for the mission. But now, you find yourself staring back at him, at his bare and open face, his tired eyes and the uncomfortable tension in his shoulders.

When you went to sleep, he was sitting on that same chair in the corner, and it looks like he hasn’t moved once. He’s been waiting for you.

He’s been waiting a lot longer than one night. If she ever came back to me, he said, revealing years of hope, of watching, waiting for you to break through your conditioning and show him a sign. He was never brainwashed, just trapped in a precarious situation, bound to a bargain with no way out that didn’t compromise you. He could have saved himself at any time but it wouldn’t have mattered.

“You were never reconfigured,” you say.

“No.”

The question and answer breaks a dam. A flood of questions pour to the front of your mind, overwhelming you, taking you back to your dreams where you almost drown – again and again. You remember the report, stating too much recollection could trigger some kind of breakdown. Yes, you could ask Chan to tell you everything, to string together all those gaps in your nightmares, but you already know that would not help. It would either feel like a story about a girl you do not know, or it would just throw you deeper into the whirlpool.

You let those questions turn over themselves like a crashing wave. When it settles, you ask the one question that remains.

“Were we friends?”

He doesn’t answer right away. He leans forward, puts his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands under his chin. He is impossibly strong but right now he looks too weak to support himself.

“No,” he finally says. His eyes dart to the floor. “No, we weren’t friends.”

He looks at you and you fall into the unspoken story within his eyes. You have been conversing without words since you met. He has been looking at you with that wanting tilt and desperate stare since he stepped into the ring.

You remember a fragment from a dream. Him, younger, his face ravaged with tears and his mouth open on a muted shout. It would be easy to mistake that as him being tortured, his pain that palpable. But your memory is not of his suffering, just his watching, just his waiting.

All this time, he has been waiting.

“Did you love me?” you ask.

This answer comes faster, but rougher as if guarding against vulnerability. His voice is low.

“Yes.”

A phantom spark fires up your arm, straight into your heart.

“Did I love you?” you ask.

He holds your gaze, though it feels like he is looking just a little past you, seeing something you can’t see. Then again, maybe he doesn’t see it, maybe he is just searching, and maybe he comes up empty. Because when he answers, his voice is airy, and the word is like a hiss of pain, like getting hit in the chest and all the air leaving the body at once.

“Yes,” he says.

You feel the weight of that hit too. Wavering under the force of it, you blurt, “I don’t remember.”

“I know,” he says. He drops his head into his hands and rubs his palms over his face, scrunches his eyes shut tight and shakes his head. “I know.”

You want to go to him. You are not sure where the urge comes from because, despite what he said, you have never loved like that. Is it something buried inside you, something that remembers? Maybe it’s just you, who you are now, the person who has spent the last few days with this man at her side. His proximity has been a confusing comfort from the start. Maybe it’s a memory or maybe it’s just him.

You stand before thinking it through. He doesn’t even notice, a sign this competent soldier is very far gone, his face still buried in his hands. When you touch his shoulder, it catches him off guard, both arms jolting as if stung.

He looks up at you, his hand instinctively flying to the one you rest on his shoulder. He clasps it, holds it there, presses it down like he needs convincing it is real.

He meets your eyes. You do not know what you look like; you just know it hurts him, that it makes everything so much worse.

A child-like sob punches out of him. His eyes close tight, his face going red as he fights to hold it in. He cried earlier and it looked like the typical outpouring of stress and hurt, but it did not look like this.

After that first sob, reminiscent of the little boy he never really was, years of torment come tearing violently out of his chest. Flashes of memories melt with the sight, his young face twisted as he wails, that muted shout filled in with his voice now.

He holds his forehead, doubles over. When you see the top of his head, those other images fade away. It is just him, here, now. Whoever he is, he has been good to you. Your hand is still on his shoulder and he is still clinging to it.

“Chan,” you whisper. You’re not sure if he hears it, but his breath catches when you nudge him upright. You are certain he can’t see very well through his tears, but he looks up anyway.

When you climb into his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck, he does not hesitate to throw his arms around you. His hands find your back and he presses you so close, it feels like he is trying to push you right into his heart. He puts his face in your neck where he fights to steady his breathing.

You touch the nape of his neck. You shiver at his long exhale.

You feel miserable and choked for a myriad of reasons. For him, everything he as endured and lost. For you, who doesn’t even know what she lost at all.

“I’m sorry,” he says. His breathing is less laboured, though his voice sounds sore. He exhales again, some tension leaving his shoulders where you rest your hands.

You squeeze those shoulders and lean back to look at him. His expression is more than a little abashed, gaze uncertain. You are not good at smiling but you try, even though you think your brows are furrowed and his sorrow is reflecting back through your eyes.

“Thought we agreed to stop apologizing,” you say.

His laugh is as weak as your smile, but certainly there. You touch his face with your scarred palm, feel the curve of his jaw where that wound runs sharpest. You think you can only touch him because of that scar. You used to balk at the sight of someone else’s tears, even deride them. You don’t remember being a lover. You didn’t even realize you had a friend until it was too late.

You might not know who you are, and you might not know how to describe how you feel, but you certainly understand it feels different, and you certainly know what kind of person you do not want to be anymore.

So you do not rip your hand away. You curl a tuft of hair behind his ear.

“I just—” You trip over your own words, wishing you were a better speaker, more personable and warm than your stiff recitation. “I can’t be that person,” you say. “I don’t know what person I will be, but I’m not – I can’t—”

“I know,” he says, sincere. He is holding your waist and he gives it a small squeeze, a reassuring touch that moves through you with a burst of warmth. It simmers in your bloodstream when he smiles – his eyes still sorrowful despite the dimple in his cheek. “I don’t wish you were someone else,” he says. With a wince, he says, “I wish I was.”

Your stomach twists in an awful knot. You think of all that blood on his hands. Despite his efforts to keep it away from you, you feel it on yourself. You have to close your eyes to push away the flood of images, unsure which are imaginative fabrications and which are potential memories. You just know he looks too young to have that kind of red on him.

You open your eyes and look at him. His eyes are open but his gaze is faraway, lost in thought. You touch a tendril of curly hair, feel it under your fingers like you have the past couple nights. He looks at you with eyes that have already shared multiple conversations.

“I wish you hadn’t suffered,” you say. “I don’t think anyone should suffer that way. I don’t think the ends justify the means anymore. But also I—”

Even while your heart is changing inside, getting those words outside is a different struggle entirely.

Chan looks at you with that tilt to his head, that questioning brow, his eyes a lot softer with his curiosity. Your breath is jagged, a messy gasp as you gather yourself. You look away, wholly incapable of maintaining eye contact.

“I got in the car with the First Guard,” you say. “Not with some other version of you. This soldier. This Chan.” You look down at your hands, absent-minded in the way you move them, from his shoulders down to his chest. “This is the man I trusted,” you say. “The one I still do.”

Your eyes lift. They meet his. His expression is a mix of confusion and amazement.

His lips part with a question, but it gets caught. He stares a little longer, then he asks, “Why?”

An unexpected laugh bubbles and bursts right out of you.

“I have no idea,” you say, giving in to that bubbly feeling, letting it fill your chest and lift you up like a safety raft. “I don’t know anything at all.”

You realize there is something freeing in that thought. No, you don’t know who you are. No, you don’t know what is going to happen past right now. You have to save your friend. You have to end your father’s business. Everything else, the becoming of you and the world and your place in it, is unanswerable. You can’t find blueprints or scour maps or form battle strategies. You don’t know where the water leads. You just have to swim.

“Maybe it doesn’t even matter,” you say with a shrug. “I don’t know. Nothing about yesterday, nothing tomorrow—”

“Just right now,” he says.

His voice is a little lower. Just right now. That was the pact you made the other night.

Your whole body comes alight, waking from the ice cold state it has been frozen in. It warms under his palms on your hips and where his dark eyes roam.

“Just right now,” you repeat as softly. You look at your hands again, realize more consciously how intimately they rest on his chest. Rather than retract, you swipe your thumb across the exposed strip of skin where his flannel is buttoned askew. “Maybe that’s all I need to know.”

This right now feels different than before. You don’t blame his emotional reaction to your earlier intimacy if it was an affect of all his memories, all he had lost, and all he was. You think your straightforward trust in him – not in spite of his identity, but because of it – has shifted things again. Your hands on his chest and your words in the open seem to have changed the shape of this whole room.

“I’m the First Guard,” he says. His eyes drop to your mouth then back up. “You’re Miroh’s daughter.”

“Yes, you are,” you say. “And no, I’m not.” You see the shiver that moves through him when you run your hands up his chest and curl your hand around the back of his neck. You feel his thighs get tense under yours, his whole body reacting. “Say my name,” you say.

When he does, it is not like a weapon or alarm, but spoken in a way that makes you feel like you have never heard your name spoken properly before that moment.

You kiss him first and this time it lands deliberately, catching him mid-breath and stealing the rest of it. When you start to lean away, to see if it’s all right, he puts his hand on the back of your head, curls his fingers in your hair, and draws you right into him, stealing back that breath with a desperate kiss.

In a way, this is familiar to you. You always liked and used sex as a grounding exercise. You feel present in your body, regardless of how floaty and detached you felt before. From the tingling top of your head to the curling of your toes, you feel every inch of yourself, alive and hot.

But it feels different too. You were always eager to chase the high, to reach the final destination with little care for the journey. You realize, maybe, it is about the becoming, itself.

“Chan,” you say, squeezing his hips between your legs when he runs his hands under your shirt. You climbed into bed still wearing your pants and shirt, wishing differently now as you rock your body against his.

You buck a little eagerly, sensations going to your head quicker than intoxication. Chan brings you back down, shushing you gently, guiding your open mouth back to his. He kisses you slowly, touches you like he is memorizing every contour. You make a sweet sound into his mouth, cupping his face as you kiss him back.

“Can we—” you start.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, yes.”

You stand on shaky legs and strip your bottom layers away. The few seconds apart are dizzying, the whole world around him fuzzy as that neon yellow light leaking into the room. Because he is staring at you, looking dazed and dishevelled, it takes him longer to unbutton his jeans than it did for you to remove your pants altogether. You climb back onto his lap and do not help at all, distracting him with another kiss.

A kiss always felt like a waste of time, but you think you could content yourself with just kissing him forever. Slow or fast, gentle or needy.

You are kissing when he gets inside you, gripping your bare thighs with a possessive hold that will feel tender tomorrow. You luxuriate in the pleasure and the pain, your body yours, shared with him, reciprocated in turn.

Whatever else existed – or could exist – ceases to matter for a time. You come together and come apart in each other’s arms, chests pressed together, hearts racing against each other. You tug his hair and pull his face into your neck, moaning under the press of his teeth and the heat of his lips.

“Mm, fuck,” he groans into your skin, clutching your hips even tighter, rocking up into you while you roll down against him. His gentle curse has you whimpering, his mouth on your throat making you shake. “Mm, get all tight when I bite you, you know,” he murmurs, and leaves no time for argument or embarrassment because he nips at your neck again. You do exactly what he said, clenching around him with an involuntary shudder.

“Fuck,” is all you say. He breathes a laugh against your skin.

You clutch his shoulders when he gathers you and stands, moving the couple small steps towards the bed where he lays you out. You are apart for only seconds, but you feel so cold and empty that it is almost terrifying. When he shucks his jeans and gets back on top of you, you unbutton his shirt with shaking fingers, body in convulsions from the angle he is fucking you.

You have never been fully alive in your body until right now.

You come while he fucks you and you come again, when he puts his hands on you, like he really does need to feel every inch of you with his searching fingers. When he keeps touching you, you are so stimulated you slap his chest, making him smile at your loss of words.

You lay in a tangled heap, your legs twined together. Your shirt is gone and his is unbuttoned, your cheek on his chest as he lays on his back. You let yourself be a little lulled by the cadence of his breathing.

Your eyes eventually wander. You realize the sun has joined that neon light, the fuzzy halo around the window now a clearer glow. The day is beckoning. It brings you back to reality, to the world outside this re-shaped room.

“I know I need to face it eventually,” you say. “I don’t know what will happen. But right now – I can’t be distracted from the mission. I need to rescue Changbin. I need to stop my father.”

Miroh is dead but everything he did haunts you, like a ghost around every corner. You can’t afford to confront the other ghosts, including your own.

“Whatever happens after right now,” you say. “I guess I’ll see.”

“I understand,” Chan says. He is caressing your spine, fingertips stroking up and down the slope of your back. He scratches a little at the nape of your neck, making you hum in contentment. “Really,” he says. “I know things got crazy earlier but… I think right now… I can do right now.”

You look up at him. He smiles down at you, dimples digging into his cheeks. You have to look away, because you just promised yourself no distractions, but that smile causes a flush of warmth that goes beyond the physical.

“Well,” you say with a sigh, patting his chest. “Maybe by then you and me will be friends for real.”

You feel his body stiffen, shoulders dropping, the hand on your nape freezing. You look up to see his face, a questioning brow quirked. He is returning the expression, though his countenance is a little more drole.

“What?” you say.

He answers with a firmer grip on the back of your neck. He rolls you over, onto your back, keeping your head lifted in his hand. The length of his open flannel drapes over your warm skin, a soft tickle as he leans down and kisses you. It starts gentle but doesn’t last, his tongue parting your lips and the hot, needy press of his mouth pinning you to the bed and his arms. You kiss back but hardly keep up, dizzy with breathlessness as he licks into your mouth, as he chases down the breath of you, as he keeps your lips on his for as long as he possibly can.

Then he leans to one side. His breath tickles your neck before he kisses just below your ear. He whispers, “I don’t want to be friends.”

He looks at you with a far too innocent dimpled smile. You think Chan might be a bigger threat to your well-being than the First Guard.

“Okay,” you say, breathless. “Noted.”

You open the blinds. Once the room is full of sunlight, you revert to soldiership and work on your next strategy.

There is no doubt the Miroh corporation is floundering in a state of panic. They are not only dealing with the loss of its boss and heir, but also destabilizing insider attacks on various sectors while vulnerable. On top of everything else, stocks have plummeted and investors are running for their lives and their wallets.

You and Chan have watched the company as well as the social reaction. With different leaks and financial fallouts, especially given Miroh’s connections to governmental and military divisions, it is no surprise that different stories have been cycling through the news. You have kept an ear on the radio and an eye on tv stations.

As you scour blueprints and map your next manoeuvre, you have the news playing at a low volume in the background. They are currently reporting the combustion of a Miroh facility. Their research and sources have led them to deduce it is an inside job.

That much is fairly obvious as no one else could do what you and Chan are doing, though you are not suspects. The media believes you are dead, that both you and your father were assassinated at the same time. You are not sure if the company honestly believes you died, that the First Guard killed you then disappeared without Miroh to corral him, or if they reported that so they could kill you without a fuss in the future.

There are no reports on Chan, of course. No one outside of Miroh’s world even knows he exists.

The major suspects are disgruntled investors and former employers, so far mostly scientists and research assistants given the targeted facilities. With some of the government leaks, there are also theories that some deals with legislators went sour and resulted in a target being painted over the name Miroh.

This seems to the angle the current report is taking. At first, you are only half-listening, as the news reporter does not mention anything you have not heard before.

Then you catch the latter half of a sentence you are not expecting.

“—of greater potential concern as this latest attack was on a military base.”

Both you and Chan whip your heads up at the same time.

You have not attacked any military bases.

“Turn that up,” you say.

Chan is already on his feet and moving towards the bed where the remote was discarded. He turns up the volume on the television and you both watch the report.

It is not impossible that a domino effect could ripple from one facility to the next. The more attacks you make – targeting all the little chinks in Miroh’s armour – the more likely it is that certain institutions will collapse entirely on their own. Either people will chase the money, like a lot of former investors, or they will abandon course altogether. Eventually, Miroh’s world will eat itself alive, with or without your help.

But you have so far only targeted a couple smaller research facilities. Yes, there have already been consequences, but not enough that a totally unrelated military base on the other side of the country would spontaneously combust.

You stare at the screen. That base is big. It isn’t going down without a fight. No one outside of the house of Miroh would have dared target it. No one else would have known how.

“Changbin,” you say.

Chan puts a hand on your shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. You look at him then at the television, at the story unfolding rapidly in front of you.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” you ask. “It has to be.”

There might be just enough chaos in the ranks that if a solder of Changbin’s calibre was being held, something might fall wayside and he would have an opportunity to escape.

You are just not sure he would try. Changbin has obviously undergone changes of his own, all seeming to stem from that final confrontation with Lee Felix before the enemy went down and took his world with him. Changbin clearly decided once and for all what was really important to him. Changbin has always played the game carefully, but in the last few months he repeatedly put himself between you and your father. He intercepted multiple interactions with Miroh’s men, altercations you dismissed as nuisances at the time but shudder to realize the weight now.

Changbin threw himself in the middle, again and again, painting a bigger and bigger target on his back. He seemed resigned to his demise. For that reason, you are not sure how much he would fight even if given the opportunity. He seemed whole-heartedly certain he would be left behind, no matter what happened.

You curl your hand into a fist, digging your nails into your scar. There was so much you should have told him. If he knew that you were willing to fight this hard. If he knew you would find out the truth. If, if, if—

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Chan says.

You look at him just as he kneels down beside your chair. He takes your hand, the one with the scar, and unfolds it carefully.

“Kicking yourself won’t save him, yeah?” Chan says.

“Yeah,” you say with a huff.

The report continues. It details this attack as being an inside job as well. Supposedly, according to rumours breaching the walls, multiple people have gone missing, but their identities have not been given to the press. Hearing that, you become marginally more hopeful that Changbin is among them. The company would not report their supposed missing persons because they are most likely prisoners being held in less-than-legal circumstances. Changbin would be that type of prisoner.

The fight is ongoing. He could still be there.

“It’s a lead, at least,” Chan says, echoing your thoughts.

“Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong place this whole time,” you say. You have been targeting the science sector when maybe your father kept it all in the military house after all. Maybe after the initial pass through that research facility, he was moved onto a more secure base, given his background as a former child soldier of the special-ops program.

Well, if that is the case, their extra security did not work. Of course it didn’t work. It’s Seo Changbin. You could laugh at their idiocy.

“We need to find out either way,” you say.

You manage your expectations for now, but as you sit at the table and change course to plan an entirely new strategy, it is with a hope as clear and bright as the sunlight.

It is a lot of driving to the military base. You will get there at nightfall the next day if you stop only sparsely.

You and Chan are swift in packing and climbing back into that car. You take turns sleeping and driving, though the last leg of the journey is spent on edge. You are braced and ready for a fight, all that determination exacerbated by the very real possibility that you are about to see Changbin again.

What will you say to him? What will he say to you? You wonder how much he knew about the reconfiguration. Clearly, he knew something, if not the specifics, as he went to great lengths to keep you away from your father.

You thought Changbin had saved you on an emotional level, but you realize now how it crossed into every sphere of life.

You close your eyes while Chan drives. You see Changbin on that rooftop, saying he will not leave you behind. It was the first hit that shattered the glass around you. Miroh had so carefully built that clear coffin around your consciousness, and Changbin smashed right through with the sheer brute force of his friendship.

You glance at Chan. Miroh did everything in his power to make sure you forgot about him. Bang Christopher Chan, the First Guard. Someone you loved and who loved you. Your father would have focussed on that. He would not have seen anything.

Why would he care about a friendship? What does that word even mean to a man like him? He would have looked right past Changbin. He spent all that time wiping Chan from your mind, that he never thought to look for anything else.

Your body gets cold as you remember – something. You close your eyes. You are standing in front of Changbin. He’s young, in his late teens, about the age you would have been when they reconfigured you. He is looking at you with uncertainty. You feel an uneasiness looking back at him.

Don’t you know me? he asks. He pulls a face, makes some dumb noises, waves his hands. Then he frowns. Changbin can be funny, but he turns it off in a second, as deadly as the rest of them. So much anger floods his eyes, they look black with the focussed intensity of his fury. You know me, he says. Think. Remember me.

You see a slant of moonlight, a windowpane, a streak of blood. Remember me.

You feel a weight as it is lifted off your chest. You hear him shouting your name. You hear him running.

You know me, he says.

You flinch – in your memory? – right now? – and a piercing wail floods your mind. You don’t want to go towards that scream. You can’t go there.

It’s me, he says. Hold on. Keep your eyes open. Don’t go. I promise I’ll get you out.

“Changbin,” you say.

“Hey, hey, baby, hey—” That is Chan. He is shaking your arm.

Your eyes pop open.

You have never had flashes of recollection while awake. It feels like a bigger adrenaline rush than waking from a nightmare, very little to divide your mind from reality.

You take a few steadying breaths while Chan rubs your shoulder. He was driving but the car is now stopped on the side of the road. You did not even feel him braking.

“What happened?” he asks when you are settled enough to speak.

“I don’t know,” you say. “I just—I was thinking. Remembering. Not like that. It’s complicated. I just—”

You close your eyes. A teenage Changbin is still standing there, looking at you warily.

You know me.

I know you.

“Changbin,” you say, choked up. You blink your eyes open and take another breath. “I’ll be okay,” you say. “We can’t stop for long. Let’s get back on the road.”

Chan does not look convinced, frowning as he stares into your face. You blink at him, then narrow your eyes into a squint.

“Did you call me baby?” you ask.

He clears his throat and turns back to the steering wheel. Looking out over the dashboard, definitely not at you, and with the tips of his ears more than a little red, he says, “You’re right. Let’s get back on the road.”

In spite of everything, you find yourself smiling.

It is only natural that you are waylaid at the very last minute, right on the cusp of sunset as you approach the vicinity of the military base. Not only is your path to finally rescuing Changbin obstructed, but it is halted by the most asinine, mundane nonsense in the world.

Soldiers, agents, entire convoluted military operations – those you can easily take. Minimum wage workers, on the other hand, are impossible combatants. More grizzled than the worst of ancient servicemen, they blink at your pleading with a harsher chill than a mob boss. You are certain this gas station attendant has seen some shit because he is not remotely inclined to assuage anyone’s anxiety.

“The till is down,” he says with an icy tone, face pinched unpleasantly. “It’ll be back up in a minute.”

He goes back to talking to his manager on the phone, smacking his computer till at random intervals. It does not exactly inspire confidence.

While you and Chan have been getting by with theft and subterfuge, you do everything in your power to not draw attention. That means you pay for gas as many stations have security cameras that log and report drive-offs and defaults.

That means you are stuck in this line with several other customers while the hapless cashier whacks his computer.

The little bell above the door rings as Chan steps inside the shop.

“What’s taking so long?” he asks.

“I want to hit him,” you say, pointing to the disinterested cashier. “He’s never gonna get that thing fixed. We have somewhere to be, we can’t just stand here all day—”

“Ah, ah, ah, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Chan says soothingly. He interrupts your rant as you were raising your voice. Not that it matters because the incompetent cashier is not paying any attention.

“I’ll take care of it,” Chan says. “You just have to know how to talk to people, yeah?”

The cashier paid you absolutely no mind when you tried to complain. He gave you a nasty look and ordered you to get to the back of the line. Chan, on the other, receives a quick onceover and a blink of seeming approval.

Chan leans on the counter and smiles a devastatingly charming smile, those dimples blinding. The cashier puts the phone on his shoulder and looks at him expectantly.

“Hey there,” Chan says.

“Hello,” the cashier replies, coolly but not as rudely. “The till is broken, sir. We’re going to have to wait for a repair.”

“You know, I’m pretty good with my hands,” Chan says. “I bet if you let me under there, I could figure something out.”

The cashier blinks at him. One blink, two blinks, three. Then he hangs up the phone and opens the gate to let Chan behind the counter.

You cross your arms and roll your eyes.

Chan, perhaps unsurprisingly given his necessary breadth of skills, helps the useless cashier get his dumb register running again. You all but throw the money at his stupid pretty head before marching away.

“Thanks, Wolfgang,” the cashier says, using the made-up name Chan gave him.

“No problem.” Chan winks back at him. “Have a good day, uh—” He squints at the name tag, gives it only a sparing glance as he steps out the door. “Hyunjin,” he says.

The door swings closed and you continue on your way.

Fortunately, you have no more preposterous interludes. You approach the base differently than the facilities, especially because you have not been able to do a proper sweep. However, that should be fine given the entire operation here has already been massively destabilized. All the main assets have moved along, either because of imminent danger or because the media now has its eyes on its actions.

Either way, you get inside without much fuss. You stick together for longer, not trusting the dark corridors and labyrinthine tunnels.

It is a lot emptier than anticipated. The fight seems to have ended some time in the last couple hours. There is an eerie, unsettled feeling, like a house abandoned in the middle of a meal. Unlike the dusty underground hovels at the research facility, this place is still breathing. You are not sure what it will cough up.

“Still think he’s here?” Chan asks, likely coming to the same conclusion as you: that even if Changbin was here, he has probably moved on. He has either escaped and gone of his own volition or he was caught and reprimanded and has been relocated.

“Maybe,” you say with a sigh. “Maybe not. But it’s still a lead. Treat it like one.”

You finally split up to cover more ground, agreeing to reconvene at the central warehouse in half-an-hour.

Maybe Changbin is no longer in these walls – maybe he was never here at all – but there might still be answers. You suspect there are questions too, because you cannot imagine who outside of the special-ops program would have both the calibre of skill and necessary intel to pull of an operation like this. Someone reached right into the heart of this base and yanked at its ventricles like it was nothing. And if not to escape, then why?

It has to be Changbin, you tell yourself, even while a sense of wrongness creeps under your skin. It is the same odd, unsettled feeling you get when you think about the night the enemy died – specifically when you think about that security system somehow being wiped after the house burned down with everyone inside it. It is that strange discombobulation, where the answer is probably simple and right in front of your face, so blatant that its absence haunts and distracts you.

You are distracted with thought. Maybe that is why you make your first mistake.

You turn a corner and crash right into someone. You are shocked because you did not hear their approach. Even distracted, you should have heard footsteps in an empty corridor, especially in heavy combat boots. You are quiet but you have unique bodily control that even well-trained soldiers cannot replicate. No one else can walk that quietly.

It is clear the same startled reaction ripples through their body.

You draw guns at the same time, firing with equal speed and precision. You also both duck at the same time. Smooth as a dance, you whirl around each other, firing and re-loading until they do a spin-kick and knock the gun aside.

As you fight with your hands, you only catch glimpses of your opponent. They are dressed all in black but not in Miroh’s uniform, a balaclava pulled over their face and head. They are very slender, but they land a hit like someone twice their size.

Your second mistake is your own fault. You underestimate them based on their build and it earns you a good right cross. In the ensuing dizziness, they make a break down the corridor at an alarming speed. It leaves you reeling more than the hit.

“What the fuck,” you say, staggering after them.

This person does not work for Miroh, that much is obvious. It also definitely isn’t Changbin. This person has the completely wrong build, opposite of Changbin in almost every way. No, it isn’t your friend, but it might very well be another prisoner. They might have an idea of what happened. They might know if Changbin was here and where he went.

The thought propels you into a determined sprint. You cannot follow sound as the person is good enough to keep their footsteps low, but you are just as skilled so they likewise do not see you coming.

They coincidentally head straight for the central warehouse. The warehouse previously functioned as a pseudo-armory, but it has already been completely cleared. It is two levels, the top floor a balcony walkway overlooking the main warehouse floor.

The warehouse is empty except for the intruder. The person seems to be deliberating. They remove their head covering for a second, long enough to catch their breath. You see a flash of black hair and a hint of a masculine profile before you are spotted. The man tugs the fabric back over his head.

He leaps right off the balcony.

It is too high for a normal person to jump without breaking a leg. Naturally, you run to the railing to look over.

Your adversary is a step ahead of you. He is dangling there, waiting for you to approach so he can swing back over and knock you down. You skid across the balcony level, the metal walkway rattling under your weight.

You don’t stay down for long. Another fight begins, a back and forth tussle that makes you think you need more training. The past day has been more than a little hectic, but you should be able to take down even a well-trained soldier.

He does another spin-kick, a solid roundhouse that knocks your mask right off. You stumble sideways while the mask clatters across the balcony before spilling right over the ledge. It is a long descent before it smacks the ground.

You ground your footing, assuming a defensive stance with a swift upward swing.

“Who are you?” you ask.

At the exact same time, the man says, “You.”

That prompts another question, a bigger question, why on earth this stranger would recognize you in this context. You cannot even think about your question, however, because the man abruptly flies at you with twice the verve as before. Caught off guard, at first you struggle to defend yourself. When he finally swings too wide, giving you an opening, you do not waste the opportunity.

You tackle him, fully and bodily, arms around him as you charge the balcony. You shove him right over the railing. It is not so high that he’ll die, but you don’t want to kill him anyway. You need to ask him questions – like did he do all this and how and why? Are there others? Is Changbin among them?

You grasp the railing. You are prepared to swing and jump over but you stop short at what you find. The man, who should be nursing a fractured leg right about now, is instead getting to his feet. He looks a bit dizzy, shaking his head and rubbing his temple, but he is otherwise unscathed.

You just stand there for a second, gawping at him like an animal.

That shielded face finally lifts, eyes finding yours across the space. His head cocks, seemingly a dry and irritated, Really?

You launch yourself off the balcony, landing heavily but safely. You absorb the shock and straighten, not taking your eyes off this man for a second.

“I’m not interested in hurting you,” you say.

He scoffs, pointedly looking down at your uniform.

“I don’t work for Miroh anymore,” you say. “I’m just trying to blend in.”

“You?” he says. It is so far the only thing he is willing to say. His voice has a darker, deeper tone, scratching at the back of your head, but his monosyllabic replies do nothing to help place him.

You want to say more but he doesn’t let you, jumping back into action. You huff in aggravation, wanting to shout, we’re on the same side! But he is fast. You expend your energy just keeping him at bay.

Your stamina is fairly well-matched, just like everything else. You move around the warehouse, kicking and punching and flipping around each other, losing track of minutes.

A sheen of sweat breaks under your uniform. He is slowing down too. There is just one difference: he still has his gun.

He gets you behind the knee and puts you on your back. Before you can retaliate, he draws his gun and points it at your face.

You freeze, staring down the barrel. You slowly lift your eyes to him, just in case any sudden movement convinces him to fire. So far, he is holding, though you are not sure why. If he truly wanted to avoid detection, it would have been in his best interest to kill you and move on.

He hesitates. His hand is steady but his eyes are darting around inside the masked fabric.

Your eyes continue to wander up, up. Your heart leaps when you see Chan approaching on the balcony, silent and serious, gun in hand. He has a longer-range weapon, not a little pistol like you and the adversary. He takes aim from his perch but you shake your head.

You know Chan can make the shot, that he could get the man through the head and not so much as graze you under him. But if this man dies, his answers go with him.

“No!” you shout at the same time the gun goes off.

You wrap your legs around the man’s midsection and yank him to the side. You roll, one over the other until you are pinned once more. You are both unharmed. With the head covering, it is hard to tell if he is frazzled. He certainly whips his head around quickly, trying to see where he dropped his gun.

You spot it at the same time. You glance at each other then bolt, stumbling over one another as you charge the discarded pistol.

Chan jumps down off the balcony. He takes more of a running leap, jumping forward rather than just down. It gives him far more momentum so he hits the ground and tucks into a roll, riding the wave of that momentum until he is in the middle of the room.

Chan reaches the gun first. He kicks it out of the way and comes at the adversary with his bare hands. He may not understand why you wanted to save an enemy who had you pinned under a gun, but Chan must trust there is a reason because he fights to incapacitate rather than kill.

It is a good fight, but the man is already tired from fighting you.

And you are good, but Chan is better. If he could not beat you, only tie, then he cannot beat Chan.

Sure enough, it takes a few more moves before the man is on his back. Chan, still wearing his half-mask, straddles the man’s chest, pinning his arms at his sides and his body to the floor. He draws a knife out of a thigh holster for good measure.

“Got him,” Chan says. “Who is this guy?”

“I have no idea,” you say, jogging over to them. “That’s what I want to find out.”

“Let me go,” the man says, wriggling uselessly under Chan’s weight. “I have nothing to say to her.”

“I told you already, I’m on your side,” you say. “Or at least I’m not on Miroh’s side.”

“Whose side are you on?” Chan asks with a jerk of his head.

“Mine,” the man answers. “Now let me go. I have a job.”

“We have a job,” you say. “We’re the ones who have been taking out the facilities so far.”

That gets the man to stop squirming. He looks at you through the narrow eye slits in his balaclava, eyes darting to where you stand behind Chan.

“You?” the man asks, seemingly his favourite word.

“Yes, me,” you snap. “And who are you exactly?”

“One way to find out,” Chan says. He does not wait for any further acknowledgement, ripping the man’s mask right off his head. It is not a cruel or violent action, more a casual shrug of his arm than anything. You are not expecting to find anything more than the scowling face of a stranger.

You and Chan freeze.

Staring back at you, with his hair returned to its natural pitch, his dark eyes narrowed in an intense glare, and a face full of unmistakable freckles, is a former agent of Miroh’s special-ops program. One of the last and a traitor, not to mention supposedly dead.

“You,” is what you say.

You do not know what else to say to Lee Felix.

#bang chan x reader #chan x reader #bang chan smut #chan smut #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #skz smut #stray kids smut #bang chan x you #chan x you #stray kids x you #skz x you

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it-was-summer · 2 months ago

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Video Killed the Radio Star - Tape #4 (Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader)

A/N: Y'all this chapter took so long to write. This is NOT proofread once again me and Grammarly were beefing because she doesn't understand fanfiction. Nonetheless, it is 12 am MST and here it is. Now for an overall warning, this chapter talks about so much that I was to let everyone know that I meant for this to be a dark series. That was my goal. I'm so sorry if some of these topics seem like they're too heavy for you. If you feel overwhelmed, disgusted, or just find it hard to read please remember that it is okay and you are loved. This chapter mentions miscarriages, eating disorders, gunshot wounds, suicide, etc. I love you all and stay healthy. I will try to post my 500 followers post soon! Not proofread because eepy. YOU'LL read my chapter unedited and you'll like it! (hopefully). Thanks for reading. -Love you all, Em.

Video Killed the Radio Star Remake Masterlist

Link to the Ao3: Video Killed the Radio Star

Previous Chapter: Tape #3 > Next Chapter: Coming Soon...

WARNING: miscarriage, eating disorder, catholic guilt, bisexuality mention??, period underwear, stalking, marital problem, divorce, sexual harassment, guns, knives, gunshot wound, This bitch shoots someone, suicide, mention of a skull, blood so much blood.

Tape Contents: We briefly dive into Heather's past. Adeline makes a call that gives the team a reason to visit the suburbs. Heather makes a decision. You see something other than pink for the first time in four days.

Word Count: 6,296

Seven to Four Years Prior- January 10, 20XX

Heather had to get out of Norfolk. She felt suffocated under her father’s watchful gaze and helicopter ways. He was a hard man to love and hard to be around in general. When he drank, she used to pray that he would forget about her, so she became quiet. She didn’t have many friends here anyway, so she took you out of the equation and knew no one else would know her name.

So, with a heavy heart, she moved her life away to Richmond. She changed her major to nursing and killed that quiet girl from Norfolk. She fabricated real lies that sometimes she couldn’t separate from reality. She stared at girls silently with longing and played it off as admiration if she was ever caught. Catholic guilt stopped it from growing into anything else.

She was slow to open up about her feelings and showed people an extroverted sorority girl nursing graduate who liked to go to bars on the weekend and let men’s hands pull at her hips desperately in dark corners.

Now, at twenty-four, she only thought about one thing: how good her stomach looked in this dress. She had thinned out tremendously since the move. At first, it started due to not having enough money to eat anywhere except the shitty university cafeteria. Then, it warped into something else. During its worst moments, she would log her calories or purge food moments after eating it. She could look into mirrors afterward and feel she was achieving something remarkable. Then, sometimes, she would also look at her face and think, ‘Is that what I look like’?

But tonight, she wanted to do something different, something fun. Having told her sorority sisters this, they all jumped on board quickly, agreeing to meet at the bar around 10 p.m. that Saturday. They were thirty minutes late.

Heather was gently fiddling with the hem of her short black dress, her eyes flickering towards the entrance every so often as she waited for them to walk in. This year, she wanted to be happier, less suffering in silence, and a little more smiley. So yes, she wanted to have fun with people she called friends. Despite all her efforts, she was sure they could see right through her sometimes. She swallowed nervously as she nursed a margarita.

The next time she looked at her phone, she saw texts from her former sisters saying that work had been hectic and that they needed to reschedule for another time. So now, Heather Alexander was right back at square one: alone. She glanced down at her dress and frowned slightly at its tight material. It was the kind of dress that made her uncomfortable but made men comfortable. Something always felt wrong with that. Heather always secretly knew that she felt an attraction to women and men, but she always felt guilty at the thought.

She sighed as she debated her next move when she saw him. He was the prettiest man she had ever seen. He had soft masculine features that almost looked slightly feminine, a uniform clad against his chest, and a charming boyish smile as their eyes met. Heather whispered a silent prayer that he would like her as he approached her and introduced himself as David Hernandez. How could she not fall for him instantly? Deep brown eyes, pink lips, dark skin, and a low rumble in his voice made her feel like giggling.

It wasn’t long before the two of them were getting married. They spent a few months together in domestic bliss. He got some time off from work, and she kept her last name, and they were… happy.

At least they were happy for six months, and then her world shattered around her as David was deployed to England. She cried herself to sleep the night she heard, and David stroked her back softly to calm her. Heather didn’t want him to leave her and see someone better overseas. She was sure that women would throw themselves at David’s feet, begging him to kiss them, touch them, fuck them, like whores in the street of Babylon. She couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else touching him, looking at him the way she looked at him, talking to him the way she did in his ear late at night. She begged him to try and find some way out of it, scared to lose what was rightfully hers, but he couldn’t. He left that week.

At first, it was just six months, but then it stretched out into a year of deployment—a year spent being faithful to a man across the Atlantic. She called him when she had time, wrote letters to him, sent him emails, and constantly contacted him in any way she could.

When he got home, it was clear that all her efforts had gone to waste. David was distant. He would sulk in corners of their home on his phone. He would lament on and on about how England felt like his home and how he missed it. She couldn’t stand it. This house they bought together was his home, and it always had been. Why was he struggling to see that?

The more he talked of his deployment, the more Heather became frustrated with him. Then he started to go out more. At first, it was just to speak with some Army friends on base a few spread-out weekends in the month. Then it was every weekend.

Heather found that the only thing that could keep him home was sex. So they had sex constantly, like animals in heat. Disgusting and rutting against each other any moment they could. However, the second that it was over, he would withdraw again. He would get dressed and say he had to get to the base.

Then he was coming late, drunk and slurring, as he pulled her to the edge of the bed and woke her up with sensual touches and dirty talk. She took this as a good sign he was coming home to his wife. He was fucking her and no one else. But slowly, he stopped coming home. He would call her late at night to tell her he would stay with a friend for the night. The following day, he would come home smelling sweet.

Heather felt lost, searching desperately for something to save her marriage. She was devoting all of her love to a man who no longer wanted it, and she could feel him falling out of love with her.

Her saving grace was the morning that she found out she was pregnant. She called David with tears in her eyes and told him softly over the phone, and she heard him laugh for the first time in months. And just like that, he was back.

His soft touches, kisses in the grocery store, and dancing with her in the living room were all back. Her devoted and dotting husband had returned home to her. She could feel the dark cloud of the past couple of months dissipate and the sun shining on her.

That light lasted a good three months. Heather sat up straight as pain coursed through her body, thundering in her abdomen as she shook David awake with tears streaming down her face. Something was wrong with the baby; she knew it. He drove her to the hospital as fast as he could, but it was too late. She had already miscarried.

Heather took a small sabbatical from work and took time to think about her life. She would stare out of their living room window blankly for hours. David was attentive at first, coming home after work and tending to Heather’s broken spirit. But he soon became bored of that routine.

When Heather returned to the pediatric oncology unit, David was notified that he was being deployed again to Okinawa, Japan. He was packed and ready by the end of that month. She didn’t see him off at the airport, picking up an extra shift at the hospital to distract her from the fact that he was leaving her again.

David called her two months into his leave to tell her he wasn’t happy. He wanted a divorce. Then he hung up before she could get a word in. That’s when it all started. Her obsession with consuming anything romantic was almost debilitating. She would visit bookstores and attend readings at the public library, sometimes calling off from work to sit at home with her romances. That’s when she saw you again. She thought that you would have stayed in Norfolk. You had once told her that you loved the water. You liked how it could look gloomy and promising on different days, with mist rolling off the surface.

She tried not to talk to you. She did. She didn’t want to scare you away like she scared David away. No, no, no, she was sure it would all work out this time. So she loved you from a comfortable distance, watching you from her car on the weekends at night, leaving you her gifts on your windshield—a silent courting.

She couldn’t help herself on Valentine’s Day. She had slipped into Nicole Smith’s room without Adeline recognizing her, and she gave the table with Adeline’s purse on it a gentle knock with her hip. Heather apologized quickly, telling her not to worry. She promptly dropped to the floor to gather the spilled contents from Adeline’s bag, and she slipped a labeled key connected to a keychain that read ‘or die’ into her pocket. Once she had copied the key, she quickly returned the original to its owner.

She felt electric when she entered your apartment on Valentine's Day in a dark outfit, a hood covering her face, and four dozen rose petals in a container. She breathed in your perfume as she perused through your bathroom. She traced the spine of every book she could touch on your shelves. She gently dove into your dirty hamper and quickly pulled out a pair of dirty underwear, blood on the inside of them as she shamelessly slipped them into her pocket. Then she got to work spreading the petals throughout your apartment. By the end, she stared at her work, panting lightly as she lay across on your rose-covered bed.

She had to have you.

Present Day- March 5, 20XX

Derek and Spencer managed to get to the public library an hour before closing. They pulled your coworker, Valerie, aside. She was a pretty brunette, glasses resting on her face delicately as she stared at the two men with a soft look of disappointment. She knew that if they were here, they had yet to find you, and the thought made her feel like breaking down in a fit of tears. She fought the urge to cry as Derek asked her a question, sliding a copy of the Polaroid you had received on your windshield. “Do you happen to remember anyone coming in with a Polaroid camera?”

Valerie stared at the Polaroid with a soft frown, trying to remember something helpful. Spencer spoke quickly, “Sometime around January fourteenth, maybe?”

Valerie chewed on her bottom lip before the memory washed over her, “Yes! Yes, oh gosh, she was blonde, I think. I remember telling her we didn’t like flash photography in the library. I only saw the back of her head, but I remember the back of her head and the flash of a camera.”

Spencer tilted his head slightly and nodded at Valerie’s words, processing the information silently.“Are you sure it was a woman?” Spencer asked softly before Valarie enthusiastically nodded.

“Yes, it was definitely a woman who took the picture.” She confirmed in a soft voice before she looked down at the Polaroid with a gentle tenderness in her eyes. “She baked me cookies last week, you know?” She looked up at the two men with a sad smile and tears in her eyes. “My cat is sick, and she made me cookies to make me feel better.” She laughed sadly as the tears started to fall.

Derek placed a soft hand over Valerie’s and gave her a tender look, “We’re looking for her,” The words caused a shaky sigh to escape Valarie’s lips as she pulled her hand away quickly and stood up.

Her cheeks were red as she cried out a soft “Excuse me.” before she turned on her heel and hurriedly left the room.

Spencer picked up the picture and stared at you in the photo. The way your hair shined in the fluorescent light, your eyes and smile trained directly on the person you were talking to. You were personable, and the thought made his stomach turn. He looked over at Derek as Spencer handed the photo back to him.

The two men walked out of the library silently, and Derek let out a soft sigh as he watched the sun starting to settle against the horizon. Spencer walked beside him with his hand stuffed in his pockets, and his head hung a little low in thought.

Derek broke the silence first, “We should get back to the station to see if JJ and Rossi have anything,”

And then they rode back in contemplative silence after that.

March 6, 20XX

You weren’t sure if it was day or night anymore. All you knew was that you were starting to feel uneven. Every creak of wood, settling of pipes, and rumble of the house had your back straightening against the bed. You were sure that Heather would fly in at any moment and touch you.

A million options weighed heavy in your mind at the scenario; you could fight back again, but that would get you sliced again or worse. You could go with it, zone out as much as possible, let her have her way with you. That option made your head spin with nausea. You had to find a way to get out.

You licked at the gash on your lip, gently exploring the cut with your tongue until you could feel the warmth of blood again. You pushed your tongue back into your mouth and looked over at your day-old apple on the nightstand, half-eaten and brown. You tenderly took a small bite that wouldn’t require you to move your lips too much.

You didn’t have much of the day-old meal left; a half-full water and this apple was all you had. You chewed softly, fighting off the nausea that threatened to creep in due to the morphine.

You tried to remember anything that could be helpful to you. It was hard to think of high doses of morphine. You had played with the knob often; when you were ready to sleep, it would go up, and when you were up, it would turn down. But lately, you just wanted it to be turned up.

You tried to think of when Heather came into the pink room. She always stuffed her keys into her pockets. A plan was in the making: Get her out of her clothes, and you could get the keys.

You nodded a little despite your discomfort with the idea of her touching you again. You just had to seduce her a little, which should be easy considering that she was ‘in love’ with you. The only problem with that plan was that you had a mangled ankle and a body running on morphine; she didn’t. Heather’s temper was quick when you talked back, and rage followed if you did something against her liking.

Maybe begging would work. No, you tried that already. Why would begging work? Perhaps you could hurt yourself just enough to force her to take you to the hospital. But that didn’t work either; she was a nurse. She wouldn’t incriminate herself like that, would she? Maybe total submission would be the key.

Convince her that you love her back and somehow ask to be let out with her supervision, but that could take forever.

You started to cry softly as you set down the core of the apple and laid down, wishing to pull your legs to your chest, but the pain of one ankle and the chain around the other made that physically impossible.

You cried until you felt your eyelids become heavy, tears still slipping out of your eyes as you fell into a morphine-induced sleep.

March 6, 20XX

JJ paced back and forth in front of the bulletin board, occasionally flicking her eyes over to the photos pinned to it as she tried to chase what was likely to be a loose end. The number that had called yours and left a message full of sobs had been a burner.

Spencer had tried to tell her to eat something this morning, but as the clock’s hands crept towards nine a.m., she still didn’t feel hungry enough to try. She sighed out another frustrated huff as Emily appeared in front of her. “If you sigh like that one more time, I think I might have to force a croissant down your throat.”

JJ gave her another dramatic sigh before she put her hands on her hips: “I’m sorry, I just feel like we have no leads. We know it's a woman, but Adeline isn’t likely to be the unsub, and all her coworkers have alibis. It just feels like we are running around with our heads cut off.”

Emily smiled and gave her a gentle nod of understanding, “I get it, but you pacing around like this isn’t helping anyone. Let’s get you a drink, coffee, or maybe something to eat.”

“People who eat breakfast consistently are twenty-five percent likely to be more productive at work,” Spencer spoke up from a desk not too far from the two women.

Emily pointed over at Spencer, “See? You’re making Spencer freak out.”

“I’m not freaked out,” Spencer frowned at the comment before looking back at a file on the desk.

JJ’s smile was slow as she let her hands fall to her side and let out a soft, “Fine.” She agreed as Emily walked over to the precinct's breakroom, JJ following her.

Derek was clicking a pen obnoxiously in an off-beat rhythm. He was about to say something when his phone started to ring on his desk. He didn’t recognize the number, but he answered it anyway. “Hello?”

“Hi, uhm, is this Special Agent Morgan?” Adeline’s voice was shaky through the phone.

Derek relaxed slightly as he set down his pen. “Yeah, Adeline. Did something happen?” He couldn’t think of another reason as to why she would call the number he had left with her if nothing happened. He was too focused on the case to think of any other reason anyway.

“Yeah, maybe? I was talking to one of the nurses about something today, and I recognized one of them. I don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner, but it was an old friend from college. She was more Y/N’s friend than mine, but I talked to her a little.” Adeline’s voice dropped to a whisper as she continued, “I mentioned that she was missing, and Heather had a weird reaction. She smiled for a second. I swear, she said she was sad to hear that, but she looked… well, for a second, it just seemed like maybe she was happy.”

Derek picked the pen back up again, ready to write down a name. It wasn’t much, but they could visit her. “What was her name again?”

“Gosh, it was Heather something… Heather, Heather, Heather,” She bit her lip as she tried to think back. “Alexander! Heather Alexander.”

Derek wrote it down and muttered quickly, “We'll look into it, thanks.” As a goodbye, he let Adeline quickly thank him over the phone before he hung up and called Penelope.

Penelope, quick as always, picked up on the first ring. “Center of divine intellect,” was her greeting.

“Good morning to you, too, baby girl. Listen, could you get Heather Alexander's address? Adeline Smith called saying that she had a strange reaction to hearing about our girl going missing.”

“Easy,” was her answer before Derek could hear the sounds of keys being tapped against and a soft humming sound emitting from Penelope’s lips as she pulled up the address: “4432 Lake Margaret Pl., Chesterfield, Virginia.”

“You are an angel, Garcia.”

“I always aim to please,”

“And you never fail, baby girl.”

JJ had begged Derek with her eyes to let her go with Spencer. It was just an interview, not even an interrogation, just to see if the connection between you and Heather went deeper than old college friends. So why shouldn’t she go?

Derek wasn’t one to put up a big fight, so he let her with Spencer. It was only thirty minutes away anyway, so if they needed the team it wouldn’t take too long for them to show up, right? He stayed behind on the phone with Garcia, who was doing her best to see if Heather had any criminal history on her record.

As the car rolled around the cul de sac, Spencer’s eyes struggled to look away from the plethora of plants in the fenced-in front yard. Pink anemones were scattered amongst daffodils, and what looked like daisies were blooming side by side. JJ rolled the car to a stop, parking it against the curb.

“Pretty yard,” She muttered as she took the keys out of the ignition. Spencer nodded a little; he had to admit that Spring came in a close second to Fall as the superior season in his mind. The flowers growing after frozen earth had kept them dormant, the welcomed feeling of the sun getting slightly warmer. It was still somewhat chilly at ten in the morning as he stepped out of the car with JJ, but he had to admit, it was shaping up to be a beautiful day weather-wise.

His head tilted back a little as he stole a glance at the blue sky above them and smiled before stuffing his hands into his pockets and tilting his head toward the house. JJ smiled and walked beside him, happy to be out of the precinct and in the early morning air.

Heather was washing the paring knife she had used on you in her kitchen sink, facing a large bay window in her living room. She swiped at the hardened blood and frowned a little at the memory. Why was she so upset with you? She could hardly remember herself when she got angry like that.

It was almost fitting, her flying off the handle over something so simple as you not being ready for her love. Was she no better than a man? Had she gotten so accustomed to men's vile and sharp ways that she had somehow forgotten how to be gentle?

She felt her hands shake as a voice came into her head, whispering her worst fear: She was worse than her father.

She let tears blur her vision at the thought as she rubbed the knife harder with a sponge, shaking her head quickly. No, no, no, no. She was not like that man. She was not cold like that man. She was lovable. She felt love. She felt overwhelming love for you. She had felt overwhelming love for David.

Her downward spiral was cut short as she lifted her weeping head and saw a black SUV parked in front of her yard. She quickly wiped away a stray tear with the back of her hand and sniffled lightly as she gently slid the knife into the dishwasher, watching two people get out of the van.

Heather’s eyes were glued to the blonde at first, pretty and fair in the morning sun before her eyes flickered to the man beside her. She recognized him immediately. She was sure it was the same man she almost ran into at the hospital yesterday.

She dried her hands as she walked around the kitchen island. As they got closer, her head arched to see how close they were. Panic was running through her veins. Her gun was in her room upstairs, loaded. She just had to get upstairs; her feet were quick to try and run upstairs and stash it somewhere close before they could ring the doorbell. Just as the idea seemed plausible enough, the bell rang through the house.

Heather let out a silent scream of panic as she smoothed out her shirt, fixed her hair, and caught a quick glance of her pretty face in the mirror near the front door before she swung it open with a pleasantly fake smile on her face. Her eyes quickly scanned both of their faces as she smiled. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, hi. My name is Jennifer Jareau. This is Spencer Reid. We’re with the FBI, and we were just wondering if we could ask you some questions.” JJ spoke clearly as she flashed her badge at Heather, a slight smile on her lips as she looked into Heather’s eyes. Spencer recognized her, finding it strange that he had almost run directly into the beautiful woman at the hospital just the day before.

Heather laughed softly and nodded as she stepped aside, opening the door wider to let the two agents inside. “Of course,” Her hands were shaking, but she gripped the edge of the door tightly, half tempted to slam it directly in their faces and go upstairs to shoot Catherine and herself to freedom.

They weren’t on to her yet; she was sure of that– especially given their lack of people– just two against one. She was quick to shut the door behind them before leading the two of them into her living room. “Can I get you two any water? I have some juice.”

The two agents shook their heads in a polite ‘no, thank you’ way as they sat on the sofa across from Heather. Heather sat on a chair with a soft “Okay” as she eyed them carefully. “Am I in some kind of trouble here?”

“No, We just wanted to ask you a few questions regarding an old college friend of yours, Y/N L/N.”

“Well,” She smoothed out her long skirt slowly, remembering to breathe normally, “What about her?”

“Had you been in contact with her at all? Did she mention anything about someone following her?”

Heather let out a gentle laugh as she shook her head, “I haven’t really had the time to reach out to old friends lately,”

Spencer’s interest peaked as he joined the conversation, “How come?”

Heather’s gaze became a little pointed at the question. Of course, the man has to ask her, “I lost a baby recently, and my husband was deployed soon after, so forgive me for not becoming pen pals with someone I knew at eighteen.” The words were direct and vicious, but she couldn’t help herself. She blew out a soft sigh before she let out a gentle and timid, “I’m sorry,”

Spencer licked his lips nervously as he leaned back against the sofa slightly, trying to resist the urge to disappear into it. Self-isolation wasn’t uncommon for women who had recently suffered from a miscarriage. That feeling more than likely increased as her support system was ripped away from her.

JJ gently touched Spencer’s knee before she cut the tension. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Alexander. We’re just trying to piece some information together.”

Heather ran a hand through her hair before she gave JJ a tight-lipped smile. “I understand that; I’m sorry. Would it be alright if I ran upstairs for some medicine? I feel a headache coming on.” She spoke fast with a tense voice, trying her hardest to pass it off as pain with a rub of her temple. When JJ nodded, she stood up and headed upstairs as calmly as she could manage.

JJ looked over at Spencer, watching Heather walk away carefully. “She seems angrier with men than anything.” Her voice was slightly amused before Spencer frowned.

“Doesn’t mean she’s in the clear; stalking is often a form of intense infatuation, but it's also used as a way to control something. She’s struggling with two things that could be our stressors: she’s craving control or dependency. She-” The soft ringing of his phone cut off his whispered rant. He answered it, happy that at least it was just Garcia calling, hoping for a better lead than his ongoing hunch.

He stood and looked at JJ, who was mouthing for him to go outside, “Hey,” He answered as he slipped out of the front door.

“Hey, nothing is coming up anywhere on Heather’s record for criminal activity—sorority sister, wife, nurse, clean as a whistle. However, considering we don’t have much right now, I decided to see if she had any warnings at work.”

“Right,” Spencer looked over his shoulder at the front door as he walked away to stand in front of the garage.

“Well, last month, she got a write-up for stealing some morphine; her supervisor forced her to go see a therapist after Heather said that she was using it for some leftover pain she was experiencing after her miscarriage. But Heather never showed,”

Spencer was walking a little further down the driveway as he listened to Garcia talk on the phone, counting the number of windows in the house. His eyes narrowed slightly to try and block out the sun before he looked away. He licked his bottom lip gently before acting on his little hunch, “Could you check her credit report? See if there are any purchases that you can find that seem odd around March third?”

“Could I check her credit report,” Garcia repeated with a laugh, “Hold on, boy genius.”

Spencer could see the top of JJ’s head from the bay window, and he turned away slightly, finding ease in the fact that she was still there. Something felt off, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. “She went to the store, but nothing crazy. Bought,” He could hear typing, “Bleach and rubbing alcohol.”

Spencer chewed on the inside of his cheek as he asked, “When was her husband deployed again? Did she buy anything from a florist around Valentine’s Day?”

“Husband was deployed December first and,” she hummed gently before she sighed, “Bought some flowers on Valentine’s day, rose petals.”

Spencer felt that feeling when something connected in his brain, a rush of adrenaline as he felt his hunch slowly turn into a plausible accusation. The roses were just that, roses. But the bleach and rubbing alcohol? That’s a recipe for chloroform right there. And finally, Heather’s husband was deployed at the beginning of December, stressor number two. It made him feel slightly hopeful about walking back into the house. “Thanks, Garcia.” He said as his feet reached the end of the driveway. He hung up the phone, walking back towards the house at a fast pace when the familiar and startling 'crack' of a gun reached his ears.

His hands drew his gun out of the holster, running back towards the house. He pushed the front door open with his foot as he heard the thumping of footsteps running on the stairs. He rounded the corner to the living room before lowering his gun as he saw JJ bleeding from a bullet wound in her thigh.

“JJ!” His voice panicked as he reached her groaning side, kneeling low to the ground next to her. “What happened?”

JJ shook her head quickly, “I’m calling for backup. She ran upstairs. She didn’t even try to,” her eyes squeezed shut tightly as a sharp pain rattled through her inner thigh, “Just go!” She urged him as she reached down for the phone in her back pocket, her free hand pressing on her gushing wound to try and slow the bleeding.

Spencer’s eyes were filled with uncertainty as he let out a soft, “No, I’ll stay here until everyone gets-”

“Spencer, go!”

Spencer felt his spine straighten at the second command. He gave her a grim nod as he stood up, readied his gun, and started for the stairs. His footsteps were soft and calculated as he ascended, pink light flooding the floor as he approached the top of the stairs. He could hear gentle begging in a voice too soft and thick to be Heather’s.

“Please, Heather, please, my love. Don’t, please don’t.” Repetitive cries for mercy made his legs move faster until he approached an opened door. The regular-looking bedroom door gave way to a steel one just behind it before revealing the scene of what looked like a demented love nest.

Spencer swallowed a lump in his throat as he took in the scene. Gun pointed carefully at Heather as he spoke, “Heather, put down the gun. You love her. You don’t want to hurt her. You know that.”

Heather jumped a little at the sound, her pistol clicking softly as her sweaty palms tightened their grip. She was quick to turn her body around to face him with the gun aimed directly at him as she spoke. “Don’t pretend like you know me or her. You don’t know our relationship. She wants this just as much as I do.”

“You know she doesn’t look at her. Look at what you’re doing to her.”

Heather’s eyes drifted to you, chained to the bed, watching as you hyperventilate softly. Heather felt her bottom lip quiver before she looked back at Spencer. “She’s just scared. You’re making me do this. She knows you’re making me do this.”

Spencer’s eyes drifted to your crying form on the bed, trying to keep your sobs quiet as you stared at him with wild eyes. He glanced over at the morphine drip next to your bed before his eyes settled back on Heather. His lips parted to say something more, but she cut him off quickly, “Put your gun down, and I won’t do it.”

Heather’s body language gives her away as she motions for him to put his gun down, her eyes crazed and large, her hands shaking and rigid against her pistol. “I’m not going to-”

“Put your fucking, gun down, or she dies,” Heather yells so loud that it elicits a soft sob from your lips, your arms coming up to protect your head, ready for the shot to be administered and for your brains to be blown out in front of Spencer in that very moment.

Spencer holds up both of his hands at that; he swears he can hear the soft sounds of sirens in the distance as he lowers his gun to the floor slowly, his foot gently kicking the gun away with a soft ‘clack.’

“Now you,” his calm voice says as he raises his hands, inching closer. Tears stream down Heather’s face now as she shakes her head gently.

“I have to,” Is her tear-soaked reply as she keeps the barrel pointed at Spencer’s head, her fingers twitching lightly as they move for the trigger. Your shaking voice cuts through the scene, and Spencer is pretty sure it’s the only thing that is stopping him from diving for his gun a few feet from him.

“Heather, baby,” Your voice betrays you as you speak the pet name, coming off a little too forced, but you continue anyway. “He can help. You don’t have to hurt anyone else. We can be happy, and we can get away. He can help, right?” Your arms relax around your head slowly as you look over at Spencer, who nods silently.

“I can, but you have got to put your gun down.”

Heather chokes out a strangled sob as she looks over at you, watching as you smile at her. You know it’s forced, but Heather can only view it as the prettiest thing she’s ever seen—a great parting gift.

She feels spit thick on her tongue as she evaluates her options: kill Spencer and go to jail. Kill you, and she might not have enough time to kill herself. Killing herself seems like the best plan out of the three, so she holds her gun steady at Spencer as she looks at your now bleeding smile.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Her voice is soft, almost so human that you feel your heart clench in pity before that clenching feeling turns into pure anxiety as you see the movement of her arm. Spencer’s feet aren't quick enough for him to tackle her to the ground as Heather raises the gun to her temple and pulls the trigger.

Her body drops to the edge of the bed, sliding down it as you feel blood coat your legs. Your ears are ringing, and your mouth is wide open as you scream. At least you think you’re screaming. You can’t hear much but a pathetic muffle of the sound as the ringing in your ears increases.

Your hands are quick to try and wipe off chunks of what looks to be part of a skull off of your exposed stomach, and you can’t seem to stop staring at Heather’s limp body at the edge of the bed. The image of her mangled head oozing blood has you gagging softly, feeling yourself getting ready to be sick before you feel two hands cup your face.

You’re screaming or sobbing; you can’t tell anymore as Spencer Reid’s face blocks the view. He keeps your face steady in his hands as you try to read his lips, your breathing heavy as he strokes your hair gently. His voice creeps in through the ringing until you eventually hear the soft repetition of, “I got you, look at me. Just keep looking at me; you’re safe.”

You feel your breathing slow, your arms reaching up to grab him before your eyes roll back as your body slumps against Spencer’s, and everything is engulfed in black.

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